Notably, a number of industrial parks in Bac Ninh, Bac Giang and Da Nang are being hit quite strongly by the fourth pandemic wave; of which Bac Giang is an epidemic hotspot with the province having recorded about 1,500 cases of Covid-19, mainly workers working in industrial zones. Bac Giang Provincial People's Committee has decided to suspend the operation of some local industrial parks while applying medical blockade to some communes and districts to stamp out COVID-19.
After medical facilities, industrial parks are considered as vital points that need to be protected against the attack of the Covid-19 epidemic. Not only in Bac Ninh, Bac Giang and Da Nang, epidemic prevention and control activities in industrial zones should be implemented on a national scale.
Therefore, localities should immediately implement the Prime Minister's latest Official Letter on ensuring safety in industrial parks against COVID-19, and have plan to prevent disruption to the supply chain and large-scale production.
Accordingly, the concerned ministries, sectors and localities need to stay vigilant and strictly follow the directions of the Secretariat, the Government, the Prime Minister, and the Steering Committee for COVID-19 Prevention and Control.
Chairpersons of the People’s Committees of cities and provinces, along with the Ministers of Industry and Trade and Planning and Investment, are responsible for guiding industrial parks and plants on prevention measures, evaluating safety levels, as well as updating their situations on the COVID-19 map. Any plant failing to ensure safety will be ordered to halt operations, the document stated.
Health declarations are compulsory for all workers and people involved in industrial zones and factories, including suppliers and transporters of materials, goods and services. Strict punishment will be applied on anyone who does not make health declarations or who makes a dishonest health declaration.
According to statistics, the whole country currently has 369 concentrated industrial parks and nearly 30 border-gate economic zones and export processing zones, equivalent to 3.8 million workers; and nearly 700 industrial clusters with 600 thousand employees.
In industrial parks, export processing zones and industrial clusters, workers' operating in a closed environment, moving to dormitories at the same time, or living in crowded boarding houses are at great risk of spreading the disease.
However, in recent times, the epidemic prevention and control at workplaces and at production and business establishments in many provinces and cities has not been seriously implemented; and has not been updated their situation on the COVID-19 map. The training, inspection and supervision of epidemic prevention and control at the workplace; and the assessment of the risk of infection at workplaces and dormitories for production and business establishments are also slow to implement.
All localities across the country should seriously and urgently direct businesses, factories, enterprises and industrial parks to regularly evaluate safety levels, as well as to update their situation on the COVID-19 map. If the disease occurs in industrial zones, the risk of disrupting production and supply chains is great, which will negatively affect the country's economy.
Enterprises need to actively conduct periodically conduct COVID-19 screening tests for employees, testing each working area to ensure safe production. On the other hand, it is necessary to prepare concentrated isolation areas to avoid cross-infection in lockdown areas. At the same time, it is necessary to avoid extreme psychology and suspend production for workers to return to the locality, so it will be even more unsafe. In high-risk provinces and cities, it is necessary to bring people working in industrial parks to focus on the list of mandatory medical declarations and prepare an immediate response plan when the epidemic appears.
