China's unprecedented public health responses have yielded notable results in blocking human-to-human transmissions of the virus, preventing or at least delaying hundreds of thousands of cases: China-WHO joint expert team
BEIJING, Feb. 25 -- China is engaged in a war against the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak, a major public health emergency considered to have spread fastest, caused the most extensive infection and have been the hardest to contain since the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949.
Though the virus has infected more than 77,000 people, daily new cases are on an overall declining trend, with the number of recovered patients rapidly increasing.
After arduous work, the positive trend is now expanding, said President Xi Jinping, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission.
So, how China has done it? Here is a review.
STRONG LEADERSHIP
After the outbreak of the epidemic, the CPC Central Committee has attached great importance to the issue and made swift deployments.
Xi personally commands the people's war against the epidemic. He has been paying constant attention to the epidemic prevention and control work and made oral or written instructions every day.
President Xi Jinping inspects the novel coronavirus pneumonia prevention and control work in Beijing, capital of China, on Feb. 10, 2020. (Xinhua/Xie Huanchi)
On Jan. 7, he issued requirements on the epidemic prevention and control work when he chaired a meeting of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee.
On Jan. 20, he demanded that Party committees and governments at all levels put people's lives and health as the top priority and make resolute efforts to curb the spread of the virus.
On Jan. 25, the first day of the lunar Chinese New Year, Xi chaired another meeting of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee, focusing on the COVID-19 outbreak. The meeting decided to form a central leading group on the epidemic, dispatch a central guiding team, and demand a State Council inter-agency task force play its full role in coordination.
"I was very encouraged and impressed by the President's detailed knowledge of the outbreak, and his personal involvement in the response," Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO) Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said after meeting Xi in Beijing on Jan. 28. "This was for me very rare leadership."
Afterward, Xi again held three meetings of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and one meeting of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee to study epidemic control and resumption of work and production.
On Feb. 10, Xi inspected COVID-19 prevention and control work in Beijing and heard reports from the frontline in the hardest-hit province of Hubei and its capital city Wuhan through video links.
