BEIJING, Feb. 10 (Xinhua) -- Nearly 4 million community workers are fighting on the front line of 650,000 urban and rural communities following the novel coronavirus pneumonia outbreak, a civil affairs official said Monday.

Chen Yueliang, an official with the Ministry of Civil Affairs, told a press conference in Beijing that every community is guarded by an average of six community workers, each of whom serves 350 residents.

They are tasked with extremely arduous epidemic prevention and control work, and they work very hard, said Chen.

Noting that sharing pens and thermometers in screening a community may bring risks of cross-infection, Chen stressed taking scientific prevention and control measures at the community level, adding that many community workers now check residents' temperature by making phone calls, using social media groups and community information platforms, according to Chen.

To minimize the risks of cross-infection from close contact, information related to the epidemic control in some communities is recorded in real time by scanning a QR code or logging onto a WeChat mini-program instead of using traditional methods of registering on a piece of paper, he said.