BEIJING, May 15 -- Chinese authorities on Friday urged efforts to prevent any "new burning point" for the outbreak of COVID-19 from emerging, as no potential risk for another wide spread of the epidemic should go unnoticed.
The instruction was given at a meeting of the leading group of China's COVID-19 epidemic response, which was chaired by Premier Li Keqiang, also a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee.
The recent sporadic cluster of COVID-19 cases in northeast China and central China's city of Wuhan proved that the task to prevent the epidemic from rebounding is still arduous and should not be taken lightly, according to the meeting.
The group asked local authorities in such regions to strengthen epidemic prevention and control by filling up loopholes, deepening epidemiological investigation, improving the epidemic control measures for communities and other approaches.
As some countries are considering looser restrictive measures against COVID-19, measures to prevent imported cases should be further modified given the potential increase of international personnel exchanges and economic cooperations, according to the meeting.
The group called on local authorities to improve the normalized epidemic control measures amid the resumption of work, production, markets and education and to come up with targeted epidemic control measures for summer.
Effective ways to resume work, production and markets should also be shared across the country to facilitate economic bounce-back and reduce COVID-19's negative effect on the economy and the society to the lowest possible, the group said.
Wang Huning, a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and deputy head of the leading group, attended the meeting.