Page:Fighting Covid-19-China in Action (2020).pdf/19

 social development. He emphasized that this epidemic, given the speed and scope of its spread, represented the most challenging public health emergency in China since the founding of the People's Republic, and that it was both a serious crisis and a major test.

He acknowledged the arduous efforts of all involved, welcoming the fact that control measures were producing increasingly positive results, but noting that the overall situation remained complex and serious, and this stage would be crucial in curbing the spread. The people must maintain their faith in ultimate victory and make unremitting efforts in all of their prevention and control work.

He encouraged the nation to turn pressure into strength and adversity into opportunities, and steadily resume normal work and daily life. He demanded a redoubled effort to stabilize the six fronts employment, finance, foreign trade, inbound investment, domestic investment, and market expectations, called for stronger policies to unleash the full potential and maintain the strong momentum of China's development, and urged the nation to achieve the goals and tasks set for this year's economic and social development.

(5) February 24: The WHO-China Joint Mission on Covid-19 held a press conference in Beijing, during which team members agreed that China had achieved notable success in slowing the spread of the virus and blocking human-to-human transmission, at least delaying and possibly preventing hundreds of thousands of infections. "This approach, what we call an 'all-of- government, all-of-society' approach, very old-fashioned, too old in some ways, has probably, definitely reverted, and probably prevented at least tens of thousands, but probably hundreds of thousands of cases of Covid-19 in China".

By February 24, the daily number of new infections on the Chinese mainland had remained below 1,000 for five consecutive days, the number of existing confirmed cases had kept dropping for almost a week, and the daily figure for discharged patients was now equal to or had surpassed that of new infections in all provincial-level administrative units.

(6) February 25: China started to tighten up border quarantine, conducting a strict check of health and body temperature, and carrying out medical inspection, epidemiological investigation, medical screening, and sample monitoring of all inbound and outbound travelers, in order to minimize the cross-border spread of the epidemic.

(7) February 26: Xi Jinping chaired a meeting of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee. He told the meeting that the national situation in epidemic control was turning for the better and economic and social development was quickly returning to normal, while Wuhan and Hubei as a whole still faced a grave and complex situation, and the possibility of an epidemic resurgence must not be overlooked in other regions.