Suggestions and skills shape Hubei's response to epidemic

Members of the provincial CPPCC have been instrumental in helping residents fight the sickness. Zhao Xinying reports.

In the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic, members of the Hubei Provincial Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference made full use of their professional skills, knowledge and expertise to contribute to the control and prevention of the outbreak in the hardest-hit province.

Ye Qing, a member of the Standing Committee of the Hubei Provincial Committee of the CPPCC and deputy director of the Hubei Bureau of Statistics, submitted 25 proposals in the two months after Wuhan, Hubei's capital, was locked down on Jan 23.

A few days after the lockdown, Ye, who had kept a close eye on the development of the epidemic, realized that Hubei had been so severely hit that it couldn't cope on its own.

In response, he submitted a proposal suggesting that each city in Hubei should receive support－both medical and material, such as face masks, respirators, medicine and daily necessities－from a specific province.

The suggestion was quickly adopted. In early February, the National Health Commission implemented a plan in which every city in Hubei was assigned a province to support it.

The provinces sent large numbers of medical workers and goods to the cities to help them overcome the damage wrought by the epidemic.

The move is widely believed to have supplemented Hubei's own strengths in the fight and laid a solid foundation for the province to break the grip of the coronavirus.

Wen Xingsheng, a member of the Standing Committee of the Hubei Provincial Committee of the CPPCC and Party chief at Hubei University of Economics in Wuhan, also submitted a number of proposals.

One that promoted the transformation of school and university buildings into temporary quarantine quarters was accepted by the provincial government, thus helping to reduce the possibility of cross-infection.

Meanwhile, other political advisers in Hubei were doing everything they could to help the province get through the epidemic.

Pan Wei, a political adviser and general manager of the Hubei branch of delivery company SF Express, asked his employer to offer free deliveries within the province.

On Jan 23, the day Wuhan was isolated, Pan sent a message to an official with the provincial government saying his company would like to coordinate with airlines to ensure that the necessary goods and materials could reach the city.

"We are ready to deliver urgently needed goods and materials at anytime," he said in the message.

From that day until the lockdown was lifted in late March, the Hubei branch of SF Express provided free delivery services worth more than 8 million yuan ($1.1 million) and transported 1,800 metric tons of goods and materials around the province.

Also in March, when medical professionals who had been sent from other provinces had completed their missions and began returning home, the company transported their luggage free of charge.