Over 120-day effort in greening whole province

During the 4th wave of Covid-19 pandemic, the province has divided the local Covid-19 map into the "green zones" and the "red zones" right from the peak of the pandemic. Corresponding to each zone, the province has implemented synchronous measures to maintain the "green zones" which are the northern localities of the province and gradually narrowed, greened the "red zone” localities in the southern region of the province. Up to now, the province has greened all its areas. The province’s 9 districts, towns and cities are implementing a plan to gradually recover socio-economic activities in the "new normal" state while further ensuring Covid-19 prevention and control.

"Red zones" unyielding against pandemic

In the early days of June, Covid-19 pandemic broke out and spread quickly with the appearance of the Delta variant, making 4 localities in the southern region of the province, including: Thu Dau Mot city, Thuan An city, Di An city and Tan Uyen town became the “hot spots” of the pandemic. The pandemic quickly spread to residential areas and then infiltrated into factories with the number of several hundred cases, then several thousands, tens of thousands of cases in localities. Although being proactive to set up scenarios and plans against the pandemic, localities must continuously adjust and change when the number of infections increased, especially made efforts in preparing isolation, treatment facilities for Covid-19 patients.

Although returning to the "new normal" state, localities still continue well controlling the pandemic. In picture: Thu Dau Mot city continues controlling people entering it

In Thu Dau Mot city, although the locality has made great efforts to prevent the pandemic from spreading in the community with strict implementation of social distancing measures under the directives of the Prime Minister and the province, the outbreaks of the pandemic at factoris, companies like Wanek Company led to thousands of F0 cases and became a source of infection to many other areas. Or in Tan Uyen town, on June 21, the locality recorded the first case related to the couple of “Co Chu Nho” milk tea shop in Thu Dau Mot city. After that the outbreak of the pandemic made Khanh Hoi quarter in Tan Phuoc Khanh ward with about 50,000 people became the town’s first locality to be locked down for pandemic prevention and control. Since the 4^th wave of the pandemic, the town has been one of the province’s first localities in establishing checkpoints against the pandemic.

In Thuan An city, from the beginning of June, when the locality received a notice about a patient with code BN10426 residing at the building C2, Ehome 4 apartment building, Hoa Long quarter, Vinh Phu ward, who was an employee working at At Tan Son Nhat airport, the locality immediately implemented measures to seal off and conduct contact tracing to identify cases of F1, F2 for isolation and monitoring measures. However, after that, a series of cases related to the female worker from HCM city’s Thu Duc district working at Puku Co., Ltd., in the Dong An I Industrial Park marked the rapid outbreak of the pandemic in the area, with 600 workers isolated at the same time. In Di An city, from a few of infections, stemming from a chain of cases at Phuc Dat Company in Di An ward, the pandemic quickly spread to many areas and hit residential areas, lodging facilities. As a locality bordering HCM city, the city faced the complicated developments of the pandemic.

However, with the view that although being the "red zones", these localities still have "green spots". Therefore, they have still taken measures to persistently protect their “green spots”. By monitoring the daily reports of these localities, we have found that the fight against the pandemic is a war without cease to prevent the invasion of the pandemic, especially prepare material facilities, resources for the collection and treatment of F0 cases. The plan of "locking, freezing", "separating" F0 cases from the community in localities received high consensus from people and businesses. Up to now, they have "greened" all their areas, starting to bring people’s daily life and production back to the "new normal" state.

“Green zones” as solid foundation for “red zones”

Over the past 120 days, the "green zones" that are the northern districts and towns of the province, including Dau Tieng, Phu Giao, Bau Bang, North Tan Uyen, and Ben Cat have become the rear and also the "firm base" to support human resources and material aids for anti-pandemic fronts in the "red zone" localities. During the peak period of the pandemic when the number of F0 cases was forecasted to increase rapidly, the province chose its northern localities to deploy requisition plans, building field hospitals to collect and treat F0 cases, thereby sharing difficulties with the "red zones".

Particularly, Ben Cat town put 3 Covid-19 treatment and collection points into operation, including the 2^nd facility of the No. 1 Field Hospital; the Field Hospital at Vietnamese-German University; the GSI Covid-19 treatment area in Thoi Hoa ward. Field hospitals and treatment facilities in other "green zone" localities during the peak period of the pandemic were also in a state of readiness to receive F0 cases for isolation under the instruction of the province. In addition, localities also mobilized human resources to support the "red zones" in conducting vaccination, taking samples for testing to "separate" F0 cases from the community...

According to the assessment of health experts, ministries and central localities, two factors for the province's Covid-19 prevention and control to have good results, with a low mortality rate are that the province has had a solid rear from the "green zones" which are used as a springboard for "striking the pandemic" in the "red zones", promptly bringing F0 cases out of the "red zones". Since July, the province has also brought the local treatment regimen into the treatment of Covid-19 patients. The province's current anti-pandemic achievement came from the efforts by all the local forces and people. To firmly protect this achievement, the province is urgently implementing a plan on injection of the second COVID-19 vaccine shots to the entire population to increase herd immunity. The province also gradually recoveries socio-economic activities under the proposed roadmap to ensure the successful implementation of the "dual tasks" in the coming time.

As of October 4, assessing the risk level on the Covid-19 map, the province now has 85 out of 91 commune-level administrative units as "green zones" and there are only 6 out of 91 units at a risk of the "yellow zones". Thus, the province no longer has commune-level administrative units with a high risk of being the "orange" zones and a very high risk of being the" red zones”. Assessing the level of risk by hamlets, quarters, the province currently has 519 "new normal" hamlets and quarters; 58 hamlets and quarter at risk; 7 high-risk hamlets, quarter and 1 very-high-risk quarter.

Reported by Minh Duy-Translated by Kim Tin