The county-level city of Zhangjiagang – administered by Suzhou in East China's Jiangsu province – is ramping up its fight against COVID-19, after having developed an intelligent surveillance system that can immediately identify those not wearing masks or committing other infringements, so officials can take rapid countermeasures.

The new system recently swung into action when enforcement officials received prompt alerts about  some vendors not donning masks in a community, via video surveillance at Zhangjiagang's social governance modernization command center.

In the event, it only took them 15 minutes to be informed and to dispatch officials to the site to deal with the incident.

The social governance modernization command center of Zhangjiagang works in tandem with the local public security department. It collects and updates data and information related to personnel in medium and high-risk areas in the city, as well as local isolation areas, COVID-19 vaccination stations and nucleic acid test facilities, among others.

To date, the command center has accepted more than 4,500 work orders related to epidemic prevention and control, providing information support for novel coronavirus measures for the whole city.

An epidemic prevention employee carries out cleaning and disinfection work at a wharf in Zhangjiagang. [Photo/WeChat account: zhangjiagangfabu365]

In another development, the city's public security and maritime departments jointly established an intelligent monitoring system for the local port.

Connected with the city's command center, the monitoring system can carry out 24-hour surveillance of all wharfs, as well as implement face recognition and non-contact temperature measurements of all staff there.

The command center will sound an alarm the first time problems are found.