Suzhou outbreak forces Jiading town residents to work from home
People line up at Anting Hospital in suburban Jiading District for nucleic acid tests on Tuesday.
Due to the latest COVID-19 outbreak in Suzhou, a Jiangsu Province city neighboring Shanghai, some people who commute daily between the two cities have started to work from home.
Most of them work or live in Shanghai's northwestern district of Jiading, whose border town, the automobile hub of Anting, is just a stone's throw away from Huaqiao, a town in Kunshan, Suzhou.
A man surnamed Meng, who lives in Huaqiao and works in Anting, said he took a nucleic acid test at a hospital in Anting on Tuesday immediately after hearing about the COVID-19 outbreak in Suzhou.
"It was important both for my family and for other people that I had the test," he said. "I will start to work from home and stick to all pandemic control requirements."
Some residents in Anting who visited Suzhou recently have also started to work from home. Among them a woman surnamed Wang said she made a trip to Suzhou with her family during the Spring Festival holiday.
Wang said she has registered her travel history with the residential committee of Yingchun neighborhood in Anting after receiving a notice from the committee workers.
"After the registration, I signed a pledge to stick to personal health monitoring rules, informed them of my health status and was given a nucleic acid test card," she explained. "I will make sure to abide by the measures."
At her residential community, which is located right next to Huaqiao, community workers are trying to contact all the 9,000-odd residents.
"We're telling residents who have traveled to places listed as medium or high risk for COVID-19 to get a nucleic acid test and monitor their health status," said Chen Liping, director of the residential committee.
Meanwhile, hospitals in Jiading are under greater pressure amid a surge in demand for nucleic acid tests following the discovery of COVID-19 cases in Suzhou.
The number of tests started to surge from Monday afternoon. At the only hospital in Anting which offers tests 24/7, the number of tests given on Tuesday was 50 percent more than the previous day.
Hospitals in the suburban district said they have increased medical staff on shifts to handle the demand and will ensure that the results are produced within 24 hours of the tests.
