Shanxi announces holiday pandemic prevention and control measures

North China's Shanxi province issued a notice on further requirements for local pandemic prevention and control on Jan 25.

The measures are effective from now till the end of the Spring Festival holiday. 

In the notice, the province encourages residents to celebrate at their local residence and avoid traveling back to their hometowns, reducing the flow of people and travel risks during the festival. People are also being encouraged to avoid hosting events or attending gatherings unless it is absolutely necessary. 

The entire province will carry out urban environment sanitation improvements, rural living environment improvements, home environment sanitation and public workplace cleaning. Shanxi will also promote healthy lifestyle information to residents to reduce the risk of pandemic transmission. 

Shanxi will enhance its capabilities across various categories, including nucleic acid testing, epidemiological surveys, centralized isolation, medical treatment, emergency response and material support. It will also improve supporting facilities and equipment, and ensure there are adequate reserves of public health emergency materials. 

In light of the recent increase in imported COVID-19 cases from abroad, Shanxi will further strengthen the closed-loop management of international flights via Taiyuan Wusu International Airport and adopt different isolation control plans for people entering Shanxi from other regions.

Officials will give pandemic prevention and control efforts in rural areas top priority. The province will improve its work plan for pandemic prevention and control in rural areas and implement a two-hour time limit for reporting abnormalities found in villages.

In response to possible disease outbreaks, Shanxi will initiate a 24-hour epidemic prevention and control command system. It will also set up special teams responsible for traffic control, arranging nucleic acid testing resources and joint epidemiological surveys, and releasing updated epidemic information. Once a regional epidemic outbreak occurs, authoritative information will be published within five hours.