As a result, 19 provinces and cities have applied social distancing measures under Prime Minister Directive No.16/CT-TTg. Therefore, epidemic prevention and control should be flexible in accordance with the situation in each locality.
Prepare for "bad and worse" scenarios
At the meeting of the National Steering Committee for COVID-19 Prevention and Control on July 18, Health Minister Nguyen Thanh Long said that the situation regarding the COVID-19 epidemic in Ho Chi Minh City and southern regions continued to be complicated. The health sector is working with localities to actively implement synchronous anti-epidemic solutions, giving priority to reducing the number of severe cases and limiting the number of deaths, especially for cases with underlying medical conditions and the elderly. Facing these complicated developments, the Ministry of Health (MoH) has asked the Government and the National Steering Committee for COVID-19 prevention and control to prepare for "bad and worse" scenarios. Following discussions with Ho Chi Minh City’s leaders, the COVID-19 Resuscitation Hospital was formed at the Ho Chi Minh City Oncology Hospital 2 with 1,000 beds. Notably, the hospital is applying an operating mechanism as a special central hospital. The MoH is giving the highest priority to the hospital with the best possible medical equipment, supplies, and human resources.
The MoH has also set up a field storage depot of equipment and consumables in Ho Chi Minh City as well as coordinating 2,000 high-function and conventional ventilators for the storage area. The Ministry has also actively mobilised resources as well as purchased and called for donors to ensure equipment for epidemic prevention and control. In addition, the MoH is calculating the need for equipment for the treatment of serious and critical patients such as ECMO artificial cardiopulmonary system, high-function ventilators, high-pressure oxygen ventilators, electric syringes and machines monitoring patients’ vital functions and slow kidney dialysis machines. The Director of the COVID-19 Resuscitation Hospital is allowed the right to release such equipment to serve the treatment.
To prepare for the "bad and worse" scenarios, the MoH has asked all second- and third-tier hospitals to set up central oxygen systems and prepare resuscitation beds. Provincial-level hospitals will set up at least 50 emergency and intensive care beds to treat severe cases according to treatment stratification. In addition, the Ministry will soon establish intensive care centres in the regions to cope with the epidemic.
On the other hand, in response to the more serious spread of epidemic, the health sector has asked localities to further accelerate testing and early detection to remove F0 cases from the community. The experience of Bac Giang province and Ho Chi Minh City have shown that the sensitivity of the rapid antigen test is equivalent to the RT-PCR pooled sample test. Therefore, the MoH has requested the conduction of pooled testing of three or five samples, in combination with rapid antigen testing. The Ministry will negotiate directly with manufacturers around the world to buy rapid tests while boosting the domestic production of RT-PCR testing equipment. About seven million rapid test kits are expected to arrive in Vietnam this week through aid sources and the MoH will prioritise localities facing complicated developments of epidemic. With donations from domestic enterprises, the Ministry will deploy 25 mobile testing vehicles with a capacity of about 2,000 RT-PCR samples per day towards supporting high-risk localities while conducting screening in safe areas.
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Binh Duong provincial armed forces proactively supporting the completion of a field hospital in Ho Chi Minh City.
Removing obstacles in transportation and circulation of goods
According to Deputy Minister of Transportation Le Anh Tuan, in order to ensure a green channel for the transportation and circulation of goods, one of the most important problems is the requirement of negative test certificates with SARS-CoV-2 for drivers. However, provinces and cities have different requirements for testing and different validity periods. Therefore, it is necessary to have uniform guidelines for all localities. Responding to this issue, Health Minister Nguyen Thanh Long affirmed that the Ministry of Health has accepted RT-PCR test and rapid test results confirmed and sealed by all medical facilities from communal level upwards and hospitals. The results are valid for three days. The MoH will guide local medical facilities while the Ministry of Transport will conduct inspection along transport routes. The agencies will also coordinate with localities to arrange more points for rapid tests (maybe at gas stations and long-distance rest stations) towards the aim of avoiding the congestion of goods and traffic.
At the meeting, the Steering Committee discussed and agreed to assign the Ministry of Health to guide the circulation of goods within the 19 provinces and cities that are implementing social distancing under Directive No.16 in the spirit of not requiring drivers to show their negative test certificates with SARS-CoV-2 but asking them to abide by epidemic prevention and control measures. Accordingly, vehicles must be disinfected; meanwhile, drivers must strictly follow the 5K message and will be arranged in separated places to avoid contact with others. Vehicles traveling between localities need QR codes to ensure smoothness.
Groups divided to respond the epidemic
According to Assoc. Prof, Dr. Tran Dac Phu, Advisor to the Public Health Emergency Operation Centre (EOC), said the the implementation of social distancing under the Directive No.16 in 19 southern provinces and cities is rational to prevent the pandemic’s spread among localities. Depending on their epidemic’s developments and socio-economic situation, each locality has its own reasonable methods to apply the directive towards effective epidemic prevention and control while ensuring the least impact on people’s social security. The localities were asked to strictly implement social-distancing but calculate plans to ensure smooth traffic, limit congestion and properly rearrange production and business activities.
Regarding this issue, Deputy Prime Minister Vu Duc Dam emphasised the classification of 19 southern provinces and cities imposing social distancing under Directive No.16 into two groups. Accordingly, the first group consists of relatively safe localities (the areas to the south of Rau River and Binh Phuoc province) that should continue to conduct the strategy of “preventing, detecting, tracing, zoning, stamping out and treating”. The second includes localities with high and widespread infection, including Ho Chi Minh City, Binh Duong and Dong Nai. They should promote new and more appropriate solutions. On the basis of classification, two flexible “spearhead-attacks” are assigned to the southern provinces and cities, including one with the gathering of forces in “red zones” with a very high risk of the spread of the epidemic. The remaining attack will focus on screening combined with synchronous measures to keep the safe “green zones” while isolating "yellow zones" and clean them to make them into “green zones”.
