Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh, Head of the National Steering Committee for COVID-19 Prevention and Control, chaired a virtual meeting on Sunday morning to discuss COVID-19 response in 20 localities. 

Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh (center) speaks at the meeting

Participants to the meeting include Deputy Prime Minister Le Minh Khai, Deputy Prime Minister Vu Duc Dam, Vice Chairman of the National Assembly Nguyen Khac Dinh, and Deputy Prime Minister Le Van Thanh; leaders of 20 cities and provinces currently placed under social distancing order.

Especially, leaders of 1,060 communes and wards of these localities also joined the meeting.

Addressing the meeting, PM Pham asked the participants, especially grassroots-level leaders to share lessons learnt and obstacles so that the social distancing order could be better implemented.

As the COVID-19 pandemic is still evolving complicatedly and unexpectedly in the region and the world and Viet Nam is not an exception, Pham underlined the need to prepare for coexisting with the pandemic.

He also urged authorities to seriously and effectively enforce social distancing measures to soon control the pandemic while communes and wards must set up hotlines to help everyone in need.

Since the fourth COVID-19 wave began on April 27, Viet Nam has recorded 418,320 domestic infection cases in 62 localities, in which Ho Chi Minh City, Dong Nai and Binh Duong are now the biggest hotspots.

Twenty-three of the above localities have imposed social distancing rules in accordance with the Prime Minister’s Directive No. 16 since July 19. These localities are ramping up mass testing to early detect infected cases.

The pandemic situation remains complicated in Ho Chi Minh City and Binh Duong as around half of their daily new COVID-19 cases were detected in the community.

In Long An and Tien Giang provinces, the number of community infection cases tends to decrease but still accounts for around 30-50 percent of their daily COVID-19 tally.

In other southern localities, the pandemic situation has been gradually brought under control as evidenced by the decrease in the number of community infection cases.

The pandemic has also been under control in Ha Noi, Da Nang, Khanh Hoa, and Phu Yen thanks to imposition of early social distancing measures./.