On the morning of March 4, the Provincial Steering Committee for Covid-19 Prevention and Control held a video conference with municipalities to assess the situation and develop measures to prevent and combat the pandemic in the coming time. Nguyen Loc Ha, Member of the Provincial Party Standing Committee, Vice Chairman of the Provincial People's Committee, presided over the meeting. Amidst the rapid increase in F0 cases in the province, the Covid-19 vaccination, especially the third shot, is determined by the Provincial Steering Committee as an urgent task to protect people's health.
The number of F0 cases is currently increasing rapidly, the Provincial Steering Committee for Covid-19 Prevention and Control directs, by the end of March at the latest, municipalities must complete the third Covid-19 shot for people. In photo: Medical forces vaccinate Ben Cat people against Covid-19.
F0 number is on the rise
According to Provincial Department of Health, during 7 days (from February 25 to March 3), the number of F0 cases in the province increased rapidly. At its peak on March 3, the province recorded 4,426 infection cases. The number of new cases announced during the week was 6,388, an increase of 242.5% compared to the previous week, with an average of 913 new cases per day. Of the total number of cases detected, the number of cases detected in the community was 1,011, accounting for 15.8% of the total cases, an average of 144 community cases per day, compared to the previous week an increase of 243.9%.
Although the number of new cases increased, the treatment situation is quite stable, with an average of 793 cases recovering from the disease every day. Currently, the province still maintains a three-tiered treatment model to reduce the pressure on provincial treatment facilities, while coordinating and allocating F0 cases between three tiers.
In recent days, the number of Covid-19 infected cases has continuously increased and been higher than last week, but 80.6% cases have no symptoms and up to 99% of patients are treated at home. The reason for this increase, according to the medical authority, is the demand for travel, while the whole country is gradually reopening activities, schools in the area have received students back, companies, factories open, workers return to work.
Speaking about the number of F0 cases in schools, Dr. Nguyen Thi Nhat Hang, Director of Provincial Department of Education and Training, said: The number of F0 cases as students is tending to increase compared to the first days of face-to-face learning implemented, but the situation is under the control of schools. By collecting opinions of parents, over 94% of parents agreed to let students learn directly at schools. The biggest difficulty of educational institutions is the lack of testing kits. The department recommends that if educational institutions do not have enough testing kits in case of detecting F0 cases, classes should be switched to online learning.
Regarding the vaccination situation, Tran Van Chung, Deputy Director of the Provincial Center for Disease Control, said that so far Ministry of Health allocated 5,968,380 doses of Covid-19 vaccines to Binh Duong, of which 5,522,440 doses have been received. The province vaccinated 5,988,547 doses, of which the number of first shots was 2,669,517, second shots was 2,152,548 and third shots was 1,166,482. Out of a total of 5,988,547 doses, there were 346,220 doses for children aged 12 to 17, the number of first shots was more than 192,000, second shots was more than 154,000.
A locality must be accountable for failing to complete the third shot injection
Speaking at the meeting, Nguyen Thi Kim Nguyen, Vice Chairwoman of Tan Uyen Town People's Committee, said that in the past week, the town set up a team to check and review the finding that some areas took data on the number of 12- to 17-year-olds in schools to report data on the children in the community, hence the data of children vaccinated were uneven between first and second shots. The town authorities are currently re-investigating this group to have a suitable injection plan. The authorities are also striving at the end of March to complete the third shot injection with high results.
Medical force of Thu Dau Dau Mot City vaccinates people against Covid-19.
Meanwhile, Nguyen Thi Hien, Vice Chairwoman of Thuan An City People's Committee, said that as comparing vaccination rates between injections (second/first and third/second), the city’s rates were very low. According to an actual survey, the number of people who have received the first and second shots in the area reached a fairly high rate, about 90% of the population. The city has made efforts to carry out vaccinations for people as planned. The city is totaling up the number of workers in companies and factories that had received first, second and thirs shots to conduct roving injections.
Concluding the meeting, Nguyen Loc Ha, said that from before the Lunar New Year holiday, the Provincial People's Committee issued a document directing municipalities to set up fixed vaccination sites at 91 medical stations of communes, wards and towns. Medical centers in districts, towns and cities must be open for vaccinations all days of the week. In addition, each municipality must set up at least 1-2 mobile vaccination vehicles coming to each household to vaccinate the elderly, or people who have illnesses and cannot go to the vaccination sites. However, these vaccination sites open infrequently. Therefore, Provincial People's Committee continues to issue a document directing municipalities to reckon up the demand for vaccination of first, second and third shots to report on vaccine demands, develop vaccination plans.
The Vice Chairman of Provincial People's Committee emphasized that by the end of March at the latest, municipalities must complete the third-shot vaccination for people. This is an urgent task to protect people's health, municipalities must finish this task. Any municipal administration that cannot complete this task must be accountable and take the full responsibility.
Regarding the review of vaccinated workers, the Vice Chairman of Provincial People's Committee assigned Management Board of provincial industrial parks to report the number of workers in factories, the vaccination demands to avoid overlap. Vaccination of students attending school will be determined by municipal administrations, who have worked closely with the education sector to come up with flexible safety adaptation measures in the new situation.
The Department of Health continues to collaborate with departments, branches and municipalities to check medical equipment in quarantine zones and field hospitals to have plans for liquidation to avoid waste and loss. In particular, Department of Health needs to carefully assess the situation of mobile medical stations, report to solve difficulties for medical stations.
Reported by Hoang Linh – Translated by Ngoc Huynh
