Determination of not letting Covid-19 evade industrial parks

That was the direction of Deputy Prime Minister Vu Duc Dam at an online meeting with the National Steering Committee for Covid-19 Prevention and Control and the Steering Committees for Covid-19 Prevention and Control of some provinces and cities held in the afternoon of June 11. Attending at Binh Duong connection point was Mr. Nguyen Loc Ha of Standing provincial Party Committee and Deputy Chairman of the provincial People's Committee.

Enterprises in the province continue to actively implement prevention and control measures to prevent the source of infection. In the photo: Apparel Far Eastern Vietnam Co. Ltd. in VSIP I Industrial Park of Thuan An city has applied the body temperature measurement system for many months now while avoiding close contact and shortening the "procedure" into the shift of the workers. Photo: Quang Tam

Vaccination will be for all workers in highly risky industrial parks

Speaking from Binh Duong, Mr. Nguyen Loc Ha informed that Binh Duong has 29 industrial parks and 12 industrial clusters of more than 18,000 enterprises engaging in production activities with nearly 1.2 million employees. Moreover, Binh Duong is adjacent to Ho Chi Minh City and Dong Nai. During the 4th epidemic outbreaks, Binh Duong had monitored and detected 1,164 high-risk cases returning from the epidemic areas and recorded 8 cases of Covid-19 infection in the community. Currently, the province has prepared concentrated quarantine areas for about 10,000 people; and, the province's maximum treatment capacity is about 600 patients at the same time.

The Pasteur Institute in Ho Chi Minh city has assessed the testing capacity of the provincial Center for Disease Control and the provincial General Hospital, which is allowed to test for confirmation of Covid-19 infection. The total number of PCR testing machines in the province is currently 6. In the coming time, Binh Duong will drastically maintain direct epidemic prevention and control at companies and enterprises while ensuring the implementation of the "dual goals" of disease prevention and control and economic development. The 6 golden principles in disease prevention and control are well implemented by assigning and coordinating "Police - tracing, Army - isolating, Government - commanding, Health authority – implementing". At the same time, he emphasized the "people and businesses as the center" strategy in disease prevention and control.

Concluding the conference, Deputy Prime Minister Vu Duc Dam said that the 4th wave of epidemics has lasted for more than a month, but so far, the epidemic situation has been basically controlled. However, the epidemic is completely different from the previous epidemics because the disease has entered the industrial parks and invaded businesses and hostels. Therefore, the goal is not to let the epidemic invade and if any should be detected in no more than 3 days of occurrence. To do so, enterprises must strictly comply with medical declaration, regular update of the health status of workers and the Covid-19 safety map in the enterprises.

Deputy Prime Minister Vu Duc Dam also said that, if there is an epidemic in industrial parks, localities need to consider turning workers' dormitories into quarantine areas and must distance and isolate the workers on the spot. In zoning quarantine, localities have to narrow down in urgent situations as the quarantine area is wide, then gradually narrow the zones. The Covid-19 safety map needs to be updated to F2 and F3 with a method of reorganizing production. In an industrial park, enterprises need to divide the shifts so that when a positive case may occur, only one area or production line is needed. Regarding the Covid-19 vaccine, Deputy Prime Minister Vu Duc Dam emphasized that the government will try to vaccinate all workers in high-risk industrial parks by August to ensure the stable development of the economy.

Ready for prevention of all infection sources

Also in the afternoon of June 11, the provincial Steering Committee for Covid-19 Prevention and Control held an online meeting with 9 districts, towns and cities in the province. At the meeting, Dr. Nguyen Hong Chuong, Director of Department of Health said, up to this point, basically, the outbreaks have been controlled. However, the outbreak in Phuc Dat Company has spread to the second cycle and in the near future, new infection cases may appear in the community. Therefore, the health sector recommends the provincial Steering Committee to support the sector in tracing the risky subjects to further ensure security and order in concentrated quarantine areas and strictly control people entering and leaving the province from Ho Chi Minh city. It is required that companies make a list of workers, experts and managers who work daily in Binh Duong but have residence addresses in Ho Chi Minh city for monitoring and management.

For companies and businesses wishing to vaccinate against Covid-19, Department of Health proposes two options. Firstly, the company commits to pay the cost of buying and injecting vaccines by making list to the department. After Ministry of Health purchase the vaccine and distributes it to Binh Duong, the company's workers will be vaccinated (in case of priority subjects under Resolution 21 have been fully vaccinated). Option 2 is that companies can access and buy Covid-19 vaccines, the health sector will support the preservation and injection stages of the company's workers.

Concluding the meeting, Mr. Nguyen Loc Ha, affirmed that in the complicated situation of the epidemic, units and localities need to strengthen supervision of people returning from epidemic areas in the spirit of not preventing transactions but ensuring that epidemic does not get into the community. Localities need to delineate on epidemiological risk assessments. The health sector needs to review medical equipment to improve testing capacity, quarantine treatment capacity and research and arrange safe vaccination and disease prevention plans.

Departments and branches in the province need to calculate and build a sample plan for disease prevention and control in enterprises. The provincial Vietnamese Fatherland Front Committee needs to calculate and launch the province's Covid-19 prevention and control fund at the soonest. Localities and branches in the province need to determine at any time that the Covid-19 epidemic can incur unexpectedly without warning by unknown sources of infection, so they are always ready to prevent the source of infection to protect industrial parks.

Reported by Kim Ha – Translated by Vi Bao

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