The State Council of China passed on Wednesday a revised draft of the air pollution prevention and control law, which focuses on addressing pollutant density, overall discharge and pollutant sources.
The draft discussed at a State Council executive meeting with Premier Li Keqiang contains the punishment and sanctions for offenses such as certificate-less pollutants discharging, over-discharging pollutants and falsifying monitoring data.
In addition, the amended draft contains provisions regarding coordinated multiple pollutants control from vehicles, industrial operations, dust and coal burning. Provisions on conducting coordinated regional measures in key areas are also included in the draft.
The revised draft will be passed to the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress for review and additional amendments.
After the executive meeting, the Chinese government also planned to make improvements on the protection of medical staff handling infectious diseases including standards on tackling emergency situations.
More measures will be implemented to strengthen monitoring and disinfection for infectious diseases, as well as for careful and proper protection in patient transfers, dealing with remains, conducting lab research and experiments, and proper disposal of possibly hazardous medical waste.
Government officials also talked about giving subsidies to medical workers participating in infectious emergencies, either domestic or overseas. Medical workers who get infected, disabled or die during the emergency response will be compensated, according to the Chinese government's plans.