Almost all the anti-epidemic personnel have joined in delivery work, including volunteers, property management staff and cleaning workers, but it is still hard to meet the demand of the residents, especially for those who live in old-style buildings that don't have elevators,' said the worker, who requested anonymity. They work from 7am until 6pm.ДЄ community worker from Guangming Street of Tonghua's Dongchang district told the Global Times on Sunday that there are only 23 frontline workers to coordinate the delivery of materials from 20 storage centers to more than 7,000 households in the community. The Eleme platform has organized 300 deliverymen to help residents get daily necessities. There are enough deliverymen, but shops just cannot process such large amounts of orders immediately, resulting in delivery delays,' said a manager of Eleme in Tonghua surnamed Li. 'Imagine the work load when ordering online is the only way to purchase food. The Global Times on Sunday learned from online takeout platform Eleme in Tonghua that the main reason for the shortage of daily necessities is the vast amount of online orders. Tonghua previously reported a super-spreading event where a COVID-19 patient held four promotional events in the cities of Gongzhuling and Tonghua promoting cooking oil, media reports said. Tonghua is the worst-hit city in Jilin, with a total of 240 infections as of press time, including 140 confirmed and 100 asymptomatic cases. Jilin Province reported 12 confirmed and 29 asymptomatic cases on Sunday, bringing the total number of confirmed cases in the province to 206. For the elderly, who may have difficulties using smart phones, community service personnel will help them make online orders, the notice says. Prior to the apology, the Tonghua government released a notice on Saturday guaranteeing the supply of daily necessities, and it said that Tonghua had established volunteer service teams to help deliver daily necessities to local residents.Дuring the quarantine period, residents will have to purchase online daily necessities such as food and medicine, which volunteers will then deliver to communities.

She said the city has mobilized more than 800 volunteers to distribute food and will continue to boost the delivery capacity to meet demand. Under pressure from the online public outcry, Deputy Mayor Jiang Haiyan issued an apology on behalf of the city's Party committee and the government of Tonghua at a Sunday press conference for the inconvenience caused by inadequate distribution of daily necessities for residents.

The Global Times learned that the responsibility of supplying daily necessities fell on the shoulders of local communities after the lockdown, but the shortage of workers meant that timely food delivery services could not be guaranteed for every household. Experts urged the local government to strengthen its public health crisis handling mechanism and play a bigger role in coordination.

Local residents are complaining online about the lack of food caused by late deliveries during the lockdown. The city sealed off all communities on Wednesday amid a surge in COVID-19 infections. Photo: VCG Facing an uproar of online criticism and complaints, a deputy mayor of Tonghua, Northeast China's Jilin Province, apologized on Sunday for slow deliveries of daily necessities to residents, after the city placed its entire 500,000-plus population under home quarantine amid rising coronavirus infections.ДЄuthorities of Tonghua also vowed to set up volunteer teams to deal with the shortage of personnel in delivering daily necessities to residents, following online criticism and complaints. Residents line up to take nucleic acid tests at a designated testing site inside a community in Tonghua, Northeast China's Jilin Province on January 16.

Tong hua vegetable