Chinese President Xi Jinping, inspects the novel coronavirus prevention and control work in Beijing on Feb. 10, 2020.

The Chinese leadership is rallying its people to get back to work even as the country continues to battle with the coronavirus outbreak, amid city-wide lockdowns and quarantines in the worst-hit regions.

"This is both a crisis and a big test for us," President Xi Jinping said at a Sunday meeting in Beijing, state news agency Xinhua reported.

He said efforts were being made to cure people, reduce fatality rates, safeguard social stability, and strengthen China's emergency medical supplies and daily necessities, according to Xinhua's translations of his remarks.

Since end-January, the world's second largest economy has shut down factories, businesses and schools in efforts to limit the spread of the disease, which has killed nearly 2,600 and infected more than 77,000 in the mainland so far.

The prolonged Lunar New Year holiday has had knock-on effects on the global supply chain and dented overall market sentiment. It has also spurred global companies to further diversify their supply chains away from China.

The epidemic's impact on China's economic and social development is temporary and generally manageable, but it will deal a relatively big blow in the short term, Xi said, according to Xinhua.

Even as the world's second largest economy pulls out all stops to contain the outbreak, it is keen to revive its vast industry and economic machinery that has been running at breakneck pace for the last four decades, and contributed to social stability in the Communist nation.