Guangzhou organizes residents to join in fight against epidemic

Guangdong's provincial capital has organized groups of residents on more than 1.7 million occasions to join hands in preventing and controlling the outbreak of novel coronavirus pneumonia in the southern metropolis between Jan 24 and Wednesday.

Yue Xiangyan, deputy secretary of the Commission for Political and Legal Affairs of the Communist Party of China Guangzhou Committee, said the general public is an important force in the fight against the epidemic and relevant departments should do their utmost to rely on and organize the masses to help  prevent and control the deadly disease from spreading in the city, which has a population of more than 16 million.

He urged relevant departments in Guangzhou to continue to organize local residents to carry out work to fight the novel coronavirus pneumonia in a scientific and orderly fashion.

"The masses and volunteers have arrived in every corner of the city to help clean the streets, coordinate medical staff to measure body temperatures, investigate fevers among suspected patients in local communities and housing estates, disinfect public venues, persuade locals to wear masks in public places and promote anti-epidemic knowledge," Yue said at a work conference on Thursday.

"And they have played an important role in helping the city's government fight the epidemic in the previous weeks," Yue said.

The city's residents have now formed an organized and disciplined volunteer team that includes police officers, auxiliary police, neighborhood committee officials, students and ordinary citizens to coordinate and help relevant departments fight the epidemic, Yue said.

Cai Wei, deputy director of the Guangzhou Bureau of Public Security, said his bureau has established special teams made up of police officers, health officials and neighborhood committee officials to launch a city-wide inspection campaign to investigate fevers, coughs and related symptoms among suspected patients in communities, neighborhood committees, universities, schools, companies and hotels.

A total of 377 people with fevers have been found after more than a million people were investigated so far, thus playing a major role in preventing and controlling the outbreak of the disease in the city.

Meanwhile Cai's bureau has also established a special task force to focus on big data analysis and analyze clues reported by locals to prevent and the epidemic, he added.