Source: Global Times

The Omicron-troubled Chinese metropolis Shanghai continued to push work resumption, as the city issued thousands of work resumption certificates and travel passes to workers, while rolling out policies to support local technological companies, officials disclosed on Monday during a press conference. 

In order to push work resumption and strengthen health management of employees in sectors such as e-commerce and express delivery, Shanghai has issued online work resumption certificates and travel passes for the city’s supply/distribution as well as postal/delivery employees, an official from Shanghai’s big data center said on Monday.

According to the official, so far Shanghai has issued 5,851 work resumption certificates and 87,766 travel passes. 

The work resumption certificate records a cluster of information including whitelist company proof, work proof, personal ID as well as nucleic acid test results acquire within 48 hours.  Employees who go back to their posts can find their work resumption certificates on the local “suishenma” App. 

The Global Times learned from an employee surnamed Chen at a whitelisted Shanghai manufacturing company that the company has applied for work resumption certificates for their employees to local residential committees, promising that the workers will be managed in a sealed-off style in the factory. The company also promised to strictly implement an epidemic prevention management plan during the closed manufacturing period. 

According to him, employees will go back to work in the factory in batches, and the first batch of employees that will resume work at the plant will be around 80. 

Workers who show their work resumption certificates and personal ID to local residential or village committees can leave their neighborhood after they take an antigen detection test on the site and show negative results. 

Besides work resumption certificates, the city also issued travel passes to people who distribute materials. The passes will be their certificates for leaving neighborhoods and carrying out delivery work. 

Officials also disclosed at the press conference that the city has rolled out special supportive measures for technological companies. Since April, Shanghai’s technological companies had applied for about 43.5 million yuan of scientific innovation coupons. The first round of those coupons has been already cashed, which has brought benefits to nearly 200 companies and services institutions. 

Scientific innovation coupons are a kind of innovative currencies issued by the government to companies. The firms can use the coupons to purchase equipment or services at research and development institutions. The institutions will further cash the coupons at government fiscal departments. 

Shanghai’s locally transmitted COVID cases was 7,333 on Sunday, with 727 confirmed cases and 6,606 asymptomatic patients. As of Sunday, Shanghai’s locally transmitted COVID-19 cases had decreased for three consecutive days.