China endeavors to ensure supply of masks, necessities amid epidemic

SUPPLIES SUSTAINED

Detection reagents are also in urgent demand. The reagent manufacturers have also joined the coronavirus fight.

Shanghai BioGerm Medical Biotechnology Co., Ltd. is one of the novel coronavirus detection reagent manufacturers approved by the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

Most of the company's employees canceled their trips home for the holiday and returned to their posts.

"It's not about the money. We are honored to work for our country at this moment," said Zhou Yan, the company's director of operations.

With the high demand for detection reagents, employees from the sales department even took high-speed trains and planes to deliver goods in person to make sure the reagents could be delivered as soon as possible.

The preventive traffic restrictions taken by the authorities to curb the spread of the novel coronavirus have to some extent affected transportation of supplies entering the coronavirus-stricken area.

The government, however, has pledged efforts to sustain the continuous supply of necessities to coronavirus-stricken areas, with the National Development and Reform Commission arranging daily transport of vegetables, cooking oil, rice and flour to Wuhan.

Alibaba's Cainiao Logistics has also coordinated with courier firms to deliver 300,000 medical supply items to Wuhan from Beijing, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region and other provincial-level regions such as Gansu, Sichuan, Hunan, Liaoning and Hainan. The medical supplies include the urgently-needed surgical masks, isolation gowns, protective gowns and goggles.

SUPPLY OF DAILY NECESSITIES SECURED

Farmers in the city of Shouguang, Shandong Province, China's major vegetable production base, are also making a contribution by providing vegetables for Wuhan.

Sang Xuemei, a farmer in Sangjiazhuang Village, got up at about 3:00 a.m., put on a headlamp and walked into the field.

"Every family has bought headlamps to pick vegetables in the dark," she said. "We used to pick vegetables in the afternoon, but we changed the schedule to deliver the freshest vegetables to Wuhan."

Two hours later, she sent 250 kg of freshly-picked cucumbers to the agricultural product examination center at the village's cooperative where cooperative members were busy loading the vegetables onto trucks heading for Wuhan after they were examined.

"China is battling against the epidemic, and we as farmers should make sure that people can eat vegetables as normal," she added.

On Jan. 28, Shandong donated 350 tonnes of vegetables to Wuhan and has been providing 600 tonnes of vegetables to Wuhan at par price daily since then.

The winter season, Spring Festival holiday and preventive transport restrictions in different areas put in place to contain the epidemic affected logistics and resulted in price hikes of some commodities. However, market authorities have worked to crack down on abnormal price hikes by dealers who took advantage of the epidemic situation.

With concerted efforts, the supply of daily necessities in Wuhan and the whole of Hubei Province as well as other places in China has been secured, said Lian Weiliang, deputy head of the National Development and Reform Commission, at a press conference in Beijing, on Monday.

Some problems, such as less varieties of leafy vegetables and delayed replenishment due to logistics, still exist and efforts are underway to solve these shortcomings, Lian said.

Liu Liansen, a resident in the city of Nanchang, east China's Jiangxi Province, wore a mask and shopped at a local supermarket on Sunday. He bought some green onions, garlic, pork ribs and Chinese cabbage.

"Several days ago, I was worried that there would not be enough supplies of daily necessities, so I rushed to the supermarket. But I was assured when I found that there are ample supplies of rice, cooking oil, vegetables and meat," he said.