Chinese provinces and cities with a low risk of the novel coronavirus epidemic will fully resume public transport services that were previously suspended amid the epidemic control efforts, a transport official said Friday.
Public transport services including road passenger transport, bus, rail transit and taxis will be fully resumed in regions with a low epidemic risk, Xu Chengguang, an official with the Ministry of Transport, said at a press conference in Beijing.
As of Thursday, 26 provincial-level regions have resumed inter-provincial road passenger transport and 30 provincial-level regions have resumed intra-provincial road passenger transport, said Xu.
Ground public transportation service in 40 cities has not been interrupted, while 78 prefecture-level cities and 90 county-level cities have resumed ground public transportation operations.
Of the 41 cities that have opened urban rail transit, 33 have had their urban rail transit lines in normal operation with the rest working on resumption plans.
In areas with a high epidemic risk, efforts should be made to meet the needs of travel for medical workers, public utility workers and vulnerable groups before the full resumption of public transport, said Xu.
The ministry has given priority to the transportation of goods for epidemic prevention and control, major production materials and daily supplies to Hubei Province and its capital Wuhan, the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak.
On Thursday alone, 20,900 tonnes of epidemic prevention goods and daily supplies and 33,000 tonnes of production materials including coal and fuel oil were transported to Hubei by rail, highway, water, civil aviation and postal services.
From Jan. 27 to Feb. 20, 378,600 tonnes of epidemic prevention goods and daily supplies and 926,000 tonnes of production materials were transported to the province, said Xu.
