WUHAN — Vice-Premier Sun Chunlan on Feb 15 visited two hospitals in Wuhan, the epicenter of a coronavirus outbreak in Central China's Hubei province, and urged all-out efforts to enhance admission and treatment capacity for timely treatment of patients.

Sun, who is also a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, is leading a central government team guiding the coronavirus epidemic control work in Hubei.

At the Taikang Tongji Hospital, Sun expressed appreciation of the hospital's active response in the fight against the epidemic as it has admitted 143 patients with the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) since Feb 10.

At the Wuhan Youfu Hospital, Sun instructed that 500 medical professionals be transferred to the hospital when she learned the hospital was able to increase the number of beds from 100 to 900.

Some positive changes have taken place in the epidemic prevention and control in Hubei and Wuhan, but the situation remains grim, said Sun.

As shortages of hospital beds for COVID-19 patients remain, utmost efforts must be made to enhance admission and treatment capacity to leave no patients unattended, she said.

The guiding team also visited the Wuhan municipal epidemic prevention and control headquarters later in the day to inspect the implementation of patient admission in the city.