DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER VU DUC DAM: Binh Duong needs to intensively bring medical system into factories and industrial parks

Early September 28, Deputy Prime Minister Vu Duc Dam; Senior Lieutenant General Vo Minh Luong, Deputy Minister of National Defense, Head of the Government's Special Task Force on Covid-19 prevention and control in the southern provinces and cities had a working session with Binh Duong province about the local Covid-19 prevention and control in Thuan An city. Nguyen Van Loi, member of the Party Central Committee, Secretary of provincial Party Committee, Head of provincial National Assembly Deputy Delegation, Head of provincial Steering Committee for Covid-19 Prevention and Control and members of the Steering Committee and representatives of a number of departments, sectors and leaders of Thuan An city received the delegation.

Number of Covid-19 deaths low, due to early treatment regimen

Reporting to Deputy Prime Minister Vu Duc Dam and the Government's Special Task Force, Nguyen Loc Ha, Vice-Chairman of provincial People's Committee said that the whole province has so far had a total of 203,989 Covid-19 cases, including 172,424 patients recovered (or 84.5% of total) and 1,923 deaths (or 0.94% of total). Over the past 7 days (from September 21 to 27), the situation of the pandemic in the province had positive changes. Specifically, the number of F0 cases detected daily in the community was 67 cases,  a 44.8% decrease compared with the last week. Most Covid-19 outbreaks in the community have been controlled. The number of new Covid-19 cases was mainly detected in the blockade and isolation areas, accounting for 96.3% of total.

Visiting a point taking samples for Covid-19 in Thuan An city, Deputy Prime Minister Vu Duc Dam suggested that localities should only test representative of a household to reduce testing costs and avoid gethering large crowds at the testing site so that no cross-infection occurs

The number of F0 cases discharged from hospitals was higher than the number of new infection cases. On average,  the number of daily Covid-19 cases in the week was 24,284 while the number of Covid-19 cases discharged was 27,903. So far, Binh Duong has also administered more than 2.1 million doses of Covid-19 vaccine, basically reaching 100% of the local residents aged above 18 vaccinated. The province is planning to inject the second shot of Covid-19 vaccines for people in accordance with the amount of vaccines allocated by the Ministry of Health with 100,000 doses per day.

Assoc. Prof. - Dr. Nguyen Lan Hieu, Director of Hanoi Medical University, Medical Director of Binh Duong Emergency Resuscitation Field Hospital said that Binh Duong's low number of Covid-19 deaths was due to the fact that since July, 2021, the province has soon put its own treatment regimen into the treatment process for Covid-19 patients while other localities have yet implemented the task not. This has contributed to reducing the number of severe Covid-19 cases and deaths. Up to now, the province’s results after vaccination have helped increase herd immunity with the rate of infection decreasing compared to the number of recovered and discharged cases. There are no reports on critical Covid-19 cases after 14 days of the first shot injection. This result will be more positive when people will be vaccinated with 2 doses of Covid-19 vaccine in the near future.

Resumption of activities must ensure step- by-step firmness and safety

Speaking at the meeting, Deputy Prime Minister Vu Duc Dam pointed out three reasons for Binh Duong to soon control the pandemic. Particularly, the province quickly implemented its own Covid-19 treatment regimen from July 2021. The province was active when quickly establishing field hospitals and isolation treatment areas to collect patients for treatment. In addition to the support of health forces from the Government and other localities, the province also mobilized the local private health system to participate in Covid-19 prevention-control and treatment. The province was very drastic in leading and directing Covid-19 disease prevention and control.

Deputy Prime Minister Vu Duc Dam and members of the Government's Special Task Force visits and learns about the lives of workers' households at the lodging facility No.71 in Thuan An city’s Binh Hoa ward

Deputy Prime Minister Vu Duc Dam spoke highly of Binh Duong province’s efforts in basically controlling the pandemic with a low mortality rate. He emphasized that vaccination combined with a number of other measures with the aim of reducing severe cases and deaths is an important factor for the province to return to a "new normal" state. He also requested that Binh Duong needs to strengthen private medical forces and community-based medical groups in the local Covid-19 prevention, control and treatment in the coming time. Province-based enterprises need to actively coordinate with the private health sector to set up their own plans on Covid-19 prevention and control as well as treatment for F0 cases if any. The province needs to let enterprises resume operation when there are green factories, places of residence and workers.

The province needs to follow the direction of the Prime Minister for the resumption of production activities. The province’s resuming production and business activities must be gradual, firm and safe with priority for fields that needed to be arranged to ensure safety. Returning to the "new normal" state, the province needs to grasp the spirit that there is no need for F0 cases to force enterprises to stop production activities. They must quickly implement a previously prepared plan to handle the situation of the pandemic…

Prior to that, Deputy Prime Minister Vu Duc Dam and members of the Government's Special Task Force visited workers at the lodging facility No. 71 in Thuan An city’s Binh Hoa ward. He extended regards to people in the area and suggested that the locality should only conduct Covid-19 testing for representative of a household to reduce testing costs and avoid gathering large crowds so that no cross-infection occurs.

Inspecting a mobile medical station in Binh Hoa ward, Deputy Prime Minister Vu Duc Dam extended regards to people, medical staff and anti-Covid-19 forces who are on duty here. He suggested the locality to continue absolutely implementing Covid-19 prevention and control to prevent the spread of the pandemic in the community. Next, he and the Government’s Special Task Force inspected the implementation of "3 on-site" production model at Pungkook Saigon 2 Company in the Song Than 1 Industrial Park in Di An city.

He acknowledged  the company's efforts in maintaining the "3 on-site" production model over the past time while wanting that when resuming operation, the company needs to further uphold its results in Covid-19 prevention and control, making efforts in keeping green factories, green workers… in the next period.

Reporting to the Deputy Prime Minister and members of the Government's Special Task Force, Mr. Loi said that the province has resolutely tested to separate all F0 cases from the community. In the coming time, the province will carry out Covid-19 prevention and control towards narrowing field hospitals and considering the option of isolating F0 cases at home under the supervision of communes and wards’ health stations. The province will also increase the number of mobile medical stations in industrial parks from 10 to 100 to meet the local needs of Covid-19 prevention and control in industrial parks. The province has also set up and brought mobile medical stations to areas with pandemic outbreak for monitoring and treating F0 cases at their place of residence.

Reported by Minh Duy-Translated by Kim Tin