BEIJING, May 27 -- On Tuesday afternoon, the Delegation of the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) and People's Armed Police Force (PAP) held a plenary meeting at the third session of the 13th National People's Congress (NPC). Eight deputies to the NPC addressed at the meeting, among whom Lieut. Gen. Li Yong, commander of the Joint Logistic Support Force (JLSF), put forward suggestions on how to improve the response mechanisms for public health emergencies.

Amid the COVID-19 epidemic, the PLA troops fulfilled their commitment to the Party and the people through real actions. In summarizing and reflecting on the anti-epidemic fight, we find it necessary to make up for the deficiencies exposed in some practices from the perspective of the national security, to improve the response mechanisms for public health emergencies, and to enhance our risk prevention capabilities.

In this regard, Deputy Li Yong put forward four suggestions:

First, a military-civilian joint system for early warning of public health emergency should be established and improved, to promote the communications and interactions among the leaderships of the military, the local governments and the disease control agencies. A work pattern featuring direct reporting and comprehensive consultation is supposed to be set up for a common early warning mechanism.

Second, it is necessary to establish and improve a military-civil joint command system for epidemic prevention and control. Based on a clear-cut command and coordination relationship, the organizational command chain is to be built from top to bottom to earmark plan alignment and command drills regularly.

Third, a sound anti-epidemic system under both peacetime and wartime should be set up to incorporate military medical and anti-epidemic emergency force into the development of the national emergency forces in integrated groups and structures.

Besides, it is also necessary to establish an integrated military-civilian storage and supply system for strategic materials, to better respond to emergencies like major epidemics. Priority should be given to the food, energy, and material reserves needed for countering the epidemic, with more attention being paid to the elaboration on a military-civilian joint storage model, so as to improve the storage and supply efficiency.