Disinfectant spray at the Hospital for Tropical Diseases in Ho Chi Minh City Photo: Uyen Phuong Translation in Ho Chi Minh City is very complex Vice Chairman of Ho Chi Minh City People’s Committee Duong Anh Duc said that there are currently 7 enterprises in industrial parks (IZs) in Ho Chi Minh City with COVID-19 cases. Most of the places have only 1-2 cases, there is no sign of spreading to other places. At the bridge point in Ho Chi Minh City, Deputy Minister of Health Nguyen Truong Son said that after the first 15 days, the epidemic situation in the city was still “very complicated”; There are still some chains discovered in the community. “However, in terms of epidemiology, we have a chance to control the chains of infection,” said the Deputy Health Minister. In Ho Chi Minh City, a number of aquatic and seafood processing factories have a very high density of workers, in a cold and closed environment, so the number of cases is higher (6-11 cases). It is expected that Ho Chi Minh City will set up about 100 delegations to inspect all factories and enterprises operating in the industrial park. Large factories and enterprises need to have a plan to arrange accommodation for the core workers, in the industrial park or a closed process from accommodation, dormitory, to the factory to work, live and bring. about. The deputy minister said that currently, Ho Chi Minh City has prepared a treatment plan for 5,000 patients, but needs to prepare more equipment to treat patients on ventilators, with severe developments. Do not “circle but loose”! That is the direction of Deputy Prime Minister Vu Duc Dam for Ho Chi Minh City. He emphasized that Ho Chi Minh City is a big city, the authorities and people have gone through the practical process of fighting the epidemic, so the decisions on social distancing, isolation and blockade must be in the spirit of trying to be as concise as possible. . The purpose of social distancing is to slow the spread of the epidemic, identify outbreaks, sources of infection, and scale, to narrowly, tightly, and strive not to prolong the situation. widespread social distancing. Ho Chi Minh City has passed 14 days of social distancing, must urgently investigate the epidemiology, classify the areas considered safe or have a solution after continuing to implement some measures that are determined to be safe. to loosen. “On the contrary, the areas at risk must be tightened even more, not to the situation of mass concentration as reflected by the people; clearly define public areas not to gather large numbers of people; control traffic flows from outbreak areas in the city. The spirit is not equal to everything, because we have to serve dual goals, even in fighting the epidemic. If the area is wide but not tight inside, it will not only affect the economy and society, but it will also be very difficult to fight the epidemic,” the Deputy Prime Minister requested. Pilot guide to isolating F1 cases at home For industrial zones, the Deputy Prime Minister asked Ho Chi Minh City to “keep up with strong measures”. The city needs to increase testing and warning to quickly detect infections in the first 3 days. “Although Ho Chi Minh City’s testing capacity is very good compared to other provinces, with a population of 10 million people and many industrial zones, the city must have a plan to increase testing capacity in case the epidemic occurs in the industrial zone. In particular, the coordination of testing must ensure consistency among the testing units, meeting the sampling rate, tracing to catch up with the spread of the epidemic, absolutely not allowing the testing situation to be interrupted. slow, mistaken due to coordination work as happened in some places,” the Deputy Prime Minister noted. In the coming time, Ho Chi Minh City needs to urgently complete the pilot guidance on isolating F1 cases at home, ensuring strict medical safety as well as people’s privacy, in accordance with the conditions of the city. in situations where a large number of people are infected. Deputy Minister Nguyen Truong Son said that from June 18, Ho Chi Minh City will pilot self-testing samples and carry out F1 isolation at home. At the same time, a review will be organized to ensure safety in the concentrated isolation area and prevent cross-infection; strengthen the review outside the community, industrial zones. According to the Ministry of Health, on June 17, Vietnam recorded 515 new cases. In which, there are 12 isolated cases immediately after entry and 503 cases recorded domestically in Bac Giang (327), Ho Chi Minh City (137), Tien Giang (13), Bac Ninh (12), Binh Duong (7), Ha Tinh (4), Lang Son (2), Nghe An (1). Of the 503 cases, 495 were detected in an isolation ward or a blockade. Stop cross-infection in concentrated isolation khu Chairman of Bac Giang Provincial People’s Committee Le Anh Duong said that hot spots around industrial zones in Viet Yen have been cleared and cleaned. New infections appeared mainly in 25/286 concentrated isolation areas for workers of Hosiden Company. At this point, Bac Giang province will continue to expand the density in concentrated isolation areas with new infections according to high-risk groups (1 person/room), medium risk (2-3 people/room), high-risk low (4 people/room). Bac Giang classifies concentrated isolation areas according to red (with new cases for 2 consecutive days or 1 day with many cases), yellow (with cases of infection), blue (no cases of infection), to focus on inspection and key surveillance, limiting cross-infection, etc. Up to now, Bac Giang has 123 factories with about 20,000 workers returning to work in the industrial park. Enterprises strictly comply with the regulations on epidemic prevention and control in the direction that the workers of any enterprise will stay together, eat together, work together in shifts and crews. So 3 companies detected 9 cases but did not lead to widespread spread. Bac Giang has a permanent monitoring department for epidemic prevention and control in the industrial park. Deputy Prime Minister Vu Duc Dam asked Bac Giang province to focus on expanding the density in concentrated isolation areas with cases to stop cross-infection.

Vehicles move on the street in Wellington, New Zealand. (Photo: THX/VNA) It is no coincidence that New Zealand consistently tops the rankings of both Bloomberg and Australia’s Lowy Institute for COVID-19 response. At the end of 2020, Bloomberg ranked New Zealand as the country with the best overall response in the world to the pandemic. In May 2021, the country in Oceania continued to hold the top spot in Bloomberg’s ranking, despite the rate vaccination against COVID-19 in New Zealand is still quite low, 4.8% of the population, while this index of Singapore, the second ranked country, is up to 29.9%. It is worth mentioning that from October 2020 to May 2021, only in April, New Zealand “gives” this top position to Singapore. Over the past three months, New Zealand has not recorded any more cases of infection in the community. Since the discovery of the first COVID-19 patient on February 28, 2020, this Pacific island nation has had a total of 2,681 cases, of which 17 are being treated, 26 have died and 2,638 who recovered. Life has almost returned to normal for the Kiwi Country’s 5 million people. Authorities lifted restrictions on people and economic activity in the country, but mostly closed borders to prevent the virus from entering the country. When assessing New Zealand as the world’s leader in COVID-19 response, experts agreed that the country had taken the most decisive, quick and effective measures to handle the pandemic, with the least impact. to economic and social activity. To achieve this, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s government, with the support of the people and business community, has adopted a strategy of “going ahead and going strong.” New Zealand’s anti-epidemic model is basically prevent the virus from entering foreign countries, purchase equipment to protect essential workers, strengthen testing, contact tracing, isolating cases and above all implementing blockade and social distancing society to cut off the chain of infection.The “secret” of this country can be summed up in six words: drastic-timely-synchronous. Immediately after the World Health Organization (WHO) announced the SARS-CoV-2 virus as a global health emergency, New Zealand on February 2, 2020 decided to ban the entry via air of foreign nationals. All passengers arriving from China, while New Zealand citizens and arrivals from other countries must self-isolate for 14 days. On March 25, when the number of cases in the country was about 200, New Zealand quickly declared a national emergency and Close the border Although the country’s economy is heavily dependent on tourism. Foreigners entering by air and sea must be tested and isolated at a designated facility. With this step, New Zealand has “locked” the door to the virus entering from abroad. The New Zealand government also urgently establishes a national system to directly register personal protective equipment to identify all equipment manufacturers capable of supporting the fight against the epidemic. Many domestic enterprises have responded and increased domestic production or cooperated with foreign companies to find sources to buy masks, hand sanitizer, face shields and medical gowns. The government is also promoting the establishment of a public-private joint venture to purchase test kits and reagents (chemicals for testing the SARS-CoV-2 virus) from various suppliers. While many countries are also looking to buy these medical items when supplies are scarce, New Zealand has achieved a higher test rate than developed countries like the US or South Korea at the same time, with about 2,200 tested per 100,000 population by mid-May 2020. For contact tracing, New Zealand using both “low technology” and high technology to identify and test all close contacts of COVID-19 patients for 14 days. The primary method of tracing is that officials ask each COVID-19 patient to identify their close contact. In addition, the “NZ COVID Tracer” smartphone application for tracing virus infections was deployed simultaneously. People wear masks to prevent the spread of COVID-19 in Auckland, New Zealand, February 14, 2021. (Photo: THX/VNA) New Zealand has stopped, not just mitigated, the spread of the disease in the community thanks to the rapid adoption of very strong measures. On March 25, 2020, just three days after confirming a domestic infection, authorities implemented a nationwide blockade measure. This is one of the countries applying the strictest blockade order in the world. Although New Zealanders have a high sense of self-discipline, the police still encourage citizens to report violators of epidemic prevention regulations. In just a few weeks, police received more than 336 reports of violations. New Zealand’s disease chart in the first wave of infections last year has demonstrated the effectiveness of anti-epidemic measures. The number of new cases per day began to decrease significantly from 89 cases / day on April 5 to only 9 cases / day two weeks later. On April 27, the government began easing the blockade order, although it still imposed some distancing measures. On May 13, New Zealand did not record any new cases, so on June 8, the government completely lifted the blockade order. During the outbreaks of re-emergence in Auckland city in August 2020 and February 2021, authorities immediately took drastic measures. For example, on February 14, New Zealand locked down Auckland, the largest city in the country to prevent the COVID-19 epidemic after recording three new infections in the community on the same day. Meanwhile, the remaining localities apply level 2 restrictive measures. When the outbreak in the community is extinguished, restrictive measures are also eased step by step with extreme caution. One highlight of New Zealand’s anti-epidemic work is the application of technology. New Zealand was one of the first developed countries to use a smartphone app to track infections. In April, the country also launched a trial of a surveillance “elarm” application to detect the SARS-CoV-2 virus, with an accuracy of up to 90% within three days before the patient showed symptoms. such as cough, shortness of breath, and fatigue. Integrated with wearable devices such as smart watches or health monitoring devices, the application uses artificial intelligence to detect sudden changes in the user’s heart rate, temperature body temperature, thereby providing an early warning to detect signs of COVID-19. New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern (centre). (Photo: AFP/VNA) Experts say that New Zealand has proactive, strong, focused, science-based epidemic response measures, and at the same time implements these measures well. In research published in the journal The Lancet Public Health, expert Sarah Jefferies and colleagues point to the factors contributing to New Zealand’s success in the fight against the pandemic are rapid improvements in testing capacity and management. handling cases, the blockade order was for a short time (almost 4 weeks) but very strict. In addition, rapid interventions when the number of cases is low, for example, the warning level increases from 1-4 in five days when the number of cases has not exceeded 1,000 cases. A team of experts from the University of Otago (New Zealand) highlighted the key element of the government’s rapid, science-based risk assessment combined with early and decisive action. The implementation of interventions at various levels (border control, control of community spread, and control of cases) are also effective against the epidemic. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern is highly appreciated for her ability to effectively convey the main message to the community – consider fighting the epidemic as the task of a unified collective of 5 million people, thereby being trusted and obeyed by the people. under very strict restrictions. The above-mentioned drastic measures against the epidemic helped reduce human losses with a very low mortality rate, only 0.53 cases per 100,000 people, but also cost the economy due to the closure policy as well as the impact of the pandemic. Translate. New Zealand’s economy recorded a record 2.9% contraction in 2020. However, in terms of the long-term outlook, the economy is forecasted to grow again this year thanks to the government’s economic stimulus package and New Zealand’s ability to restore normal life as before. pandemic. Moreover, it is the good control of the epidemic that has brought New Zealand’s great economic recovery opportunities. The results of a Bloomberg survey conducted in October 2020 with the participation of about 700 people, most of them senior executives in many industries, of which 53% are from large corporations and 47% are from large corporations. SMEs, showing that New Zealand is the country most trusted by business leaders to invest in the future. In fact, the economy of the “kiwi land” has rebounded as business confidence recently improved and the unemployment rate plummeted to 4.7% in the first quarter of 2021. The Ministry of Finance projects gross domestic product (GDP) growth to reach 2.9% in 2021 and gradually accelerate to 4.4% in 2023. Kiwibank’s chief economist, Jarrod Kerr, said the view For the future, a program to roll out vaccines, travel bubbles with Australia and many other countries in 2021 will support solid growth in 2022. New Zealand’s drastic, timely and synchronous approach to the COVID-19 epidemic, from blockade, distance, to tracing and treatment, has become a model of anti-epidemic recognized by the international community. and provide useful lessons to help governments plan how to respond to the current pandemic as well as future pandemic outbreaks.