The Jilin Railway Station is closed temporarily in the aftermath of COVID-19 cluster infections in Jilin city, Northeast China's Jilin province, on May 13, 2020. [Photo by Zhao Wenbin/For chinadaily.com.cn]

President puts emphasis on redoubling disease prevention work across nation

President Xi Jinping instructed local governments on Thursday to keep alert on disease prevention and control to avoid a resurgence of the novel coronavirus outbreak.

Xi made the remark at a meeting of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee. The meeting was presided over by Xi, who is also general secretary of the CPC Central Committee.

The current situation of disease prevention and control is generally good in China, but the situation remains complex abroad and the country still faces arduous tasks in preventing a resurgence of the disease, Xi said.

He warned the country's officials about slackness and required them to continue to closely monitor disease prevention efforts to ensure that the previous achievements are secured.

He instructed the governments of Heilongjiang and Jilin provinces, where infection clusters have been reported recently, to strengthen prevention measures.

The authorities in Hubei province and its capital, Wuhan, should continue to strengthen and improve prevention measures and carry forward testing for the virus, Xi said.

He pointed out that Beijing should strengthen disease prevention during the upcoming two sessions, the annual sessions of the nation's top legislative and political advisory bodies, due to open next week.

The government should guide schools to improve their plans for disease prevention to better safeguard students, Xi said.

Prevention measures in medical institutions should be strengthened to avoid infections in hospitals, and medical treatment services should be resumed in an orderly manner, he added.

Local governments nationwide are required to learn from the lessons of recent cases caused by gatherings of people, and they are urged to plug loopholes in disease prevention.

Officials who fail to implement the CPC Central Committee's decisions will be punished seriously, and prevention measures should be improved, according to the meeting.

Given the overseas situation, related departments should make further efforts to care for Chinese citizens living abroad, improve health services, quarantine arrangements and medical treatment in border regions, and continue to deepen international cooperation on disease prevention and control, according to the meeting.

The meeting also highlighted the importance of deepening supply-side structural reform, making full use of China's domestic demand, and building a new growth model with the mutual development of the domestic and international markets.

According to the meeting, the authorities should make efforts to encourage businesses to resume work and production and return shopping malls, markets and service businesses to their normal level of activity.

The meeting also called for the enhancing of international coordination to jointly maintain the security and stability of international industrial and supply chains.