Mr. Tran Dac Phu, former Director of Preventive Medicine (Ministry of Health), advisor to the Vietnam Center for Emergency Response to Public Health Events, acknowledged that Hanoi has passed three weeks of social distancing, and the number of cases
According to data from the last three days, on average, the city recorded about 60 cases per day, a little less than one to two weeks ago.
Mr. Phu commented that `the flat number of infections is also considered to mean that Hanoi has restrained the outbreak of the disease`, not allowing it to flare up like some other localities such as Ho Chi Minh City and the southern provinces.
He assessed that the number of infections in Hanoi is not many but it is complicated.
Second, the epidemic has penetrated into risky places such as hospitals, supermarkets, especially supply chains, pharmacies… This is very dangerous because F0s go to many places, the epidemiology is complicated.
Third, many secondary cases of cough and fever are transmitted from old outbreaks. Today they test negative but test positive a few days later… causing the number of infections to not stop.
`The epidemic is complicated, but Hanoi is still able to control it. If it relaxes early, people scatter, and at that time the epidemic flares up strongly, it will be very difficult to control,` he said.
Mr. Khong Minh Tuan, Deputy Director of the Hanoi Center for Disease Control (CDC), said that `the number of infections in recent days in Hanoi has decreased but has not really decreased sharply.`
First, many cases are scattered in the community, unrelated to each other, the source cannot be found, plus the movement of people is too complicated.
Second, people’s awareness is not really good.
`That delay is the moment that causes the pathogen to spread,` he said.
Checkpoint in Hanoi’s Old Quarter.
Recently, Hanoi has deployed screening tests for at-risk subjects in the community in 30 districts in the area.
`Orange group` are factories, enterprises, production facilities, agencies, units, markets, supermarkets, hospitals, medical examination and treatment facilities…
`Green group` are people who move less in non-epidemic areas.
According to statistics from the Hanoi Department of Health, the districts that are taking samples include Ba Dinh, Dong Anh, Dong Da, Hai Ba Trung, Thanh Tri, Thanh Xuan, Thuong Tin, Ha Dong… Each district is divided into two
Mr. Phu said that distancing is to cut off the chain of infection between people who carry the disease and people who do not carry the disease.
To control the epidemic well before August 25, Hanoi City will conduct large-scale screening tests with 1.3 million samples using RT-PCR technique and two million rapid tests are expected.
Preparing for large-scale screening testing, Hanoi increased testing capacity to over 200,000 samples/day and returned test results the fastest.
The electronic communication portal of the Hanoi People’s Committee cited the assessment of leaders of the Department of Health, stating that this is the largest test sample collection ever in the prevention of the Covid-19 epidemic.
Regarding Covid-19 vaccination, according to Mr. Phu, Hanoi places vaccination as one of the priority issues, but it still must follow a methodical plan, vaccinate quickly and vaccinate the right subjects, in accordance with the quantity.
