In Hangzhou, the provincial capital, a health code system has been adopted, which is being promoted nationwide. The move is another successful application of big data technology in the province's management of the outbreak.

Developed by Ant Financial, an affiliate of Alibaba Group Holding, which is headquartered in Hangzhou, the system is being used to assess people's health status according to their recent travel history and health information, which they provide online.

Based on the analysis results, a QR code marked green, yellow or red is issued. Only people who are issued green codes are allowed to return to work and travel throughout Hangzhou.

By Feb 18, more than 15 million people had registered their information and had received health codes online.

To pinpoint areas lagging behind in restarting production, Zhejiang released the country's first index on work restarting, based on data received from the province's 90 county-level regions on Feb 17.

Taking the number of enterprises in different industries that have restarted operations, the index provides an overview of the situation and data for authorities to take action to stimulate economic development.

Pan Yigang, chief researcher at the Zhejiang Development and Planning Institute, said: "Adequate data is necessary to draw up policies for the resumption of production. The index is an example of Zhejiang's digital governance."