In the National Assembly’s discussion on the socio-economic situation and the State budget on June 15, Ho Chi Minh City Party Committee Secretary Nguyen Thien Nhan proposed that Vietnam should “announce the end of domestic pandemic” and consider opening door to trade relations with 17 external economies.
As a legislator, Mr. Nhan proposed to announce the end of the COVID-19 outbreak based on three criteria.
Firstly, the number of people infected with the disease for every 1 million people in Vietnam does not exceed 50, in fact it was 3.4 on average.
Secondly, the number of people being treated is no more than 1 person per 1 million people (the current rate is 0.2 people).
And thirdly, Vietnam did not have any deaths due to COVID-19.
According to Mr. Nhan, over the past time, Vietnam has actively prevented the pandemic with early and timely instructions. Each locality has applied and implemented this direction seriously and flexibly, so the total number of infected people in Vietnam so far is 332, this figure is much lower than the threshold of 1,000 people when the world announced the global epidemic.
By the time Mr. Nhan made the above proposal, 60 past days in Vietnam did not record COVID-19 cases in the community, only 7 patients were positive in 7 hospitals, and 97% were recovered. However, according to the current Law on Prevention and Control of Infectious Diseases, Vietnam has not been able to declare COVID-19 pandemics free since April 22, Vietnam has recorded 66 COVID-19 patients returning from abroad. The current law stipulates that the pandemic free may be made after 28 days from the date the last patient is quarantined, regardless of whether the patient is infectious from the community or from a foreign country.
These cases all come from citizen protection flights.
Sixty-six patients recorded from April 22 to now have been quarantined upon entry, with no risk of infection in the community.
At the Standing Government meeting on prevention and control of COVID-19 in the morning of May 15, one month ago, Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc assigned the Ministry of Health to study and soon propose the announcement of the end of the epidemic.
But this has not been done because there are still scattered cases from abroad.
According to Decision 02/2016 / QD-TTg regulating conditions for announcing epidemics, announcing the complete eradication of infectious diseases, in addition to meeting the conditions specified at Point b, Clause 1, Article 40 of the Law on Prevention and Control of Infectious Diseases , the declaration of ending of all infectious diseases must meet the following conditions: No new cases of disease will be detected after a certain period of time for each disease.
On February 26, 2020, the PM issued Decision 07/2020 / QD-TTg amending a number of articles of Decision 02/2016 / QD-TTg regulating conditions for announcing epidemics and announcing the end of infectious diseases.
Accordingly, the addition of the average incubation period and the time to detect no new cases of COVID-19 disease (formerly known as acute respiratory infections caused by new strains of Corona virus) at Appendix stipulating the average incubation period and the time for not detecting more cases of infectious diseases as a basis for announcing all infectious epidemics issued together with Decision No. 02/2016 / QD-TTg dated 28 / 1/2016.
Specifically, COVID-19 disease of group A, the average incubation period of 14 days, the time of detecting no new cases is 28 days (the time is calculated from the date the latest case is isolated. at health facilities).
The addition of COVID-19 to the list as well as the period of time for not detecting new cases of infection will provide a sufficient legal basis as a basis for announcing the end of epidemics for the first appearance of the epidemic. These regulations prevent Vietnam from being able to announce the end of the epidemic to the outside at the moment.
Therefore, Mr. Nguyen Thien Nhan has just created the concept of announcing the end of domestic epidemics.
Along with that, Mr. Nhan proposed to open monitoring program with 17 countries.
According to Mr. Nhan, Vietnam has trade relations with many countries but only 17 countries and territories are the most important partners, they account for 90% of foreign investment, 80% of international trade and 80% of tourists to Vietnam. Vietnam needs programming to monitor openness to these countries in a cautious bilateral agreement.
Nhan said that it is entirely possible to do this because since May this year, 10 out of 17 countries and territories are no longer infected by the criteria of less 10 people who are treating viruses per million people. As such, we need to assign specific planning to open the door with 10 countries: Japan, Korea, China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Thailand, Germany, Australia, British Virgin Islands …
In addition, Mr. Nhan said that 7 other countries including: India, USA, Russia, Singapore, Netherlands, Indonesia, Malaysia are not currently safe, so it is necessary to monitor and when they are safe, Vietnam will reopen relations with them.
The proposal of Ho Chi Minh City Secretary was given in the context of Vietnam’s economy was seriously affected by “alarming” statistical indicators due to the disease.
Domestic media said the forecast of foreign investment into Vietnam this year could be reduced by 30% compared to 2019, tourism by 50% and international trade by 18%.
Preliminary statistics in HCM City show that by the middle of April, there were 101,982 employees in enterprises had to take unpaid leave, agreed to postpone labor contracts, or lost their jobs.
According to the June 13 report of the Department of Tourism of HCM City, by the end of May, the city has 37 businesses – including 7 international travel businesses, 30 domestic travel businesses – stopped operating. Hotels in the area only have about 10-20% of occupied rooms.
In Binh Duong, one of the provinces with the most factories and industrial parks in the country, over the first quarter of 2020 alone, over 20,000 people applied for unemployment benefits.
At a conference on June 12, Tran Thanh Hien, head of Finance and Accounting Department of Vietnam Airlines, said that the national carrier will fall into very bad condition from August, if it is not supported by the Government, it will run “out of money.”
According to Mr. Hien, Vietnam Airlines expects a loss of VND15 trillionVND16 trillion this year. At the current scale, the company loses about VND2 trillion per month if it does not fly.
Unemployment creates a great risk of social instability. At the end of May, more than 8,000 workers of Chi Hung Co., Ltd. (100% Taiwanese investment) in Binh Duong protested for rights, which according to Vietnamese media was “misunderstood, concerned about losing rights plus being triggered by some individualss.”
Mr. Nguyen Thien Nhan said that with the “step-by-step opening“, Vietnam could exploit foreign markets and encourage domestic investment.
In the same view, legislator Luu Binh Nhuong recommended the parliament to add a separate resolution or include a joint resolution on economic recovery.
However, legislator Nguyen Lan Hieu – director of Hanoi Medical University Hospital – said it needed to be very careful because the second wave of outbreaks is still hanging in many countries. “China is also showing signs of outbreaks again in some places,” he said.
On June 15, Chinese authorities said that China was currently blocking 10 more neighborhoods in Beijing to try to prevent the spread of COVID-19 from a new outbreak linked to a wet food market.
Earlier, on June 13, the Beijing government decided to block part of the Chinese capital. Blockade area includes 11 residential areas in Phong Dai district, south of the city. A wet food market, Tan Phat Dia, and a seafood market were also closed. The Chinese capital government said at Tan Phat Dia market there were cutting boards used to cut imported salmon contaminated with the virus.
Many provinces and cities issued isolation orders against the people coming from Beijing. Thus, after two months of the calming epidemiological situation, now the people of Beijing are alienated again. It was the turn of people from the capital city to be quarantined for 14 days when they returned to the provinces.
Until June 16, a spokesman for the Beijing government had to warn the situation of the COVID-19 epidemic in Beijing “extremely serious.”
Beijing city government on June 16 announced that 27 more people had been infected with COVID-19 within 24 hours, bringing the total number of new infections in the past 5 days to 106.
At a press conference, the town hall spokesman declared that Beijing was in a “race against time” to combat the new strain of coronavirus and the Chinese capital had to “take stricter, more determined measures.”
The World Health Organization (WHO) said on June 15 that it was “closely monitoring” the disease situation in Beijing and raised the possibility of sending more experts to the Chinese capital in the coming days.
Wu Zunyou, an epidemiologist at the China Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), said Beijing has soon identified an outbreak and the period between now and June 18 will decide the scale of this outbreak.
On the evening of CCTV on June 15, Wu Zunyou said: “Quarantine measures in Beijing are timely and effective. People infected with SARS-CoV-2 may develop symptoms within the next 2 days. If the number of new infections does not increase much, it can be said that the disease has basically stabilized.”
Thus, the next 3 days are the decisive moment to control the new COVID-19 outbreak in Beijing.
As a country with land borders with China and the two sides having close economic and political relations, Vietnam needs to be very careful before the situation of re-outbreak in China.
Thoibao.de (Translated)
