Guangzhou lifts closed management measures in districts

Closed-off management measures temporarily implemented across districts of Guangzhou, Guangdong province, were lifted on Wednesday afternoon, part of more scientific and precise efforts to contain the city's latest COVID-19 outbreak.

In a news conference held on Wednesday afternoon, Zhang Yi, deputy director and spokeswoman of the Guangzhou Health Commission, said the city would carry out more precise identification of high-risk areas, which will be generally identified by residential compounds or building units.

In principle, living places, working areas with frequent activity from people infected with the novel coronavirus, as well as places with high risk of epidemic transmission are designated as high-risk areas.

"Closed-off management for the sake of epidemic control should be imposed and lifted as quickly as possible to reduce inconveniences to the people," she said.

The city's improvement of prevention and control measures was based on the ninth edition of the country's COVID-19 control protocols and the 20 recently announced optimized response measures.

In the city's Haizhu district, the hardest hit in the latest outbreak, closed-off management measures had been implemented in most parts of the district for more than half a month.

According to notices issued by local district governments on Wednesday afternoon, such temporary closed-off management measures were lifted with the exception of high-risk areas.

In terms of quarantine for close contacts of infected people, Zhang said isolation at home instead of going to quarantine facilities would be considered if they qualify, without further elaboration.

The screening scope of close contacts should not be expanded randomly, and time and space concomitance should not be used as the standard of determining close contacts, Zhang said.

"Under the current epidemic situation and the fast transmission of the virus, we should carry out work earlier, more accurately and in a more timely fashion," said Zhang Zhoubin, Party secretary of the Guangzhou Center for Disease Control and Prevention.