Editor's note: The 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China concluded with a blueprint mapped out for China's future development in the next five years and beyond. CGTN is publishing "How China Works – Charting the Future," a special series delving deep into a key report adopted at the congress and to see how the country can fulfill the goals and tasks on the new journey of the new era.

Since May 2020 when we started to conduct COVID-19 prevention and control on a regular basis, we have spared no effort to prevent both inbound cases and domestic resurgence. We have improved our targeted response capabilities and taken region-specific, tiered and differentiated prevention and control measures. We have also acted swiftly to stamp out local outbreaks whenever they occurred. Our efforts have protected people's lives and health to the greatest possible extent. China has continued to lead the world in both economic development and epidemic prevention and control, and this fully demonstrates our country's strong epidemic response capabilities and the strengths of CPC leadership and China's socialist system.

Perseverance will be rewarded. All provincial authorities, central departments and sectors should be fully aware of the complexity and difficulty of epidemic prevention and control, and the volatility of the epidemic at home and abroad. We should mobilize, be of one mind, stay confident and respond to COVID-19 with dedicated efforts. We should always put the people and their lives first, take a science-based and targeted approach to implement the dynamic zero-COVID policy, and act promptly to curb the spread of the virus.

We should continue our science-based and targeted COVID-19 response, and improve response measures. We should expedite the research and development of vaccines, medicines and rapid test reagents, and make our response more targeted. We should always be confident in our response strategy, pursue progress while ensuring stable performance, and promote economic and social development while containing the disease. We should also adopt more effective measures, ensure the most effective response possible at reasonable cost, and minimize the impact of COVID-19 on society and the economy.

(Source: Part of Xi Jinping's speech at a meeting of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the 19th CPC Central Committee, March 17, 2022.)

This episode is presented by Zhong Qiu.