Tried leaving our fair province of Jiangsu lately? If so, you likely encountered a couple of snags. Nucleic acid tests (NAT) to be precise, one 48 hours before arrival at the destination, and another upon arrival. For Nanjingers though, one place is making an exception.
The city of Chuzhou in eastern Anhui Province lies just across the border with Jiangsu Province. In fact, from one particular part of the City, it is just three kilometres to Nanjing’s Jiangbei New Area, and it is in that fact that we find the explanation for granting NAT exemption to Nanjingers.
Is this some kind of reward for us having endured last July the biggest lockdown since Wuhan? Or that we have remained almost entirely COVID free since then?
Neither. The reasons are altogether more practical.
The place in question is in fact just one residential community in Chahe Town of Lai’an County in Chuzhou.
Like all communities, Linxi Community has formulated its own “Epidemic Prevention and Control Policy for Returnees”. Therein, it is stipulated that all personnel returning from low-risk areas outside the province shall hold a 48-hour NAT report and do another test upon arrival.
But those returning from Nanjing to the Community are exempt.
Liu Manchang, Party Branch Secretary of Linxi Community, spoke with The Paper yesterday evening, 19 January, pointing out that the outbreak in Nanjing last summer seriously disrupted the normal rhythm of exchange between the two places. As a result, the Community took into account the demands of the masses and decided against a rigid inspection of people returning from Nanjing this Chinese New Year.
Linxi Community has a resident population of about 7,000. Fully 60 percent of them work in Nanjing. For the Community management, the prospect of arranging NATs for upwards of 4,000 people every weekday evening was perhaps just too much to contemplate.
“But this does not mean that we are careless about epidemic prevention and control”, Liu added.
