(Yicai Global) March 3 -- Shanghai has introduced a dynamic color QR code electronic information management system that integrates data collected by the health, public security and transport departments to determine the infection risk of each resident and take corresponding measures to check the contagion of the novel coronavirus.

The mechanism will use the collected data to calculate residents' risk status via modeling, analysis and evaluation. It is also an electronic 'passport' during the epidemic. Among the three risk states the setup quantifies, green indicates that a person has no abnormalities or has been cleared of medical management measures. Yellow refers those who have come to Shanghai from key epidemic areas for less than 14 days, and red denotes people who have not been freed of medical management measures, or have been diagnosed and not been discharged, or whose infection has not been ruled out.

Many restaurants, salons, and homestays in Shanghai have used the codes to check for latent risks among customers and serve only low-risk ones. The service has garnered 47.16 million visits since it was released two weeks ago and the volume of traffic is rising by the day.

"Our service area's code usage rate is between 92 percent and 95 percent. The center will use the traditional approach for risk management of people whose mobile phones are too old for the app, or those elderly who do not know how to use it," a staffer with the Administrative Service Center in the eastern megacity's central Huangpu district told Yicai Global.

Editors: Tang Shihua, Ben Armour