Changchun-based automaker FAW Group resumes work on Tuesday, about a month after the group suspended operations at its five plants in the city. [Photo by Jilin Daily/For chinadaily.com.cn]

Changchun-based automaker FAW Group began to resume work on Tuesday after suspending operations at its five plants in the city on March 13 because of the latest outbreak of COVID-19 in Jilin province.

Under COVID-19 epidemic prevention and control requirements, plant areas will be put under lockdown management and all staff members should take daily COVID-19 rapid antigen tests, Sun Jian, director of the Jilin Provincial Department of Industry and Information Technology, told Jilin Daily on Monday.

The provincial government has dispatched a mobile laboratory with a daily capacity of 20,000 test samples to the group.

Of the 174 new locally transmitted COVID-19 cases that Jilin reported on Thursday, 138 were found in Changchun, 30 in the city of Jilin and six in Baicheng.

Of the 342 newly reported asymptomatic carriers, 298 were identified in Changchun, 40 in the city of Jilin and two each in Baicheng and Liaoyuan.

Nine areas have been downgraded from medium-risk for COVID-19 to low-risk, and 30,000 farmers who were stranded in Changchun have been transported home under a plan to get plowing underway as of Thursday, said Zhang Baozong, deputy director of the provincial publicity department, at a Friday news conference.