The National Steering Committee on COVID-19 Prevention and Control has requested that security cameras must be installed at quarantine facilities before June 12 in a bid to curbing disease transmission from quarantine camps to community. 

A technical worker installs a surveillance camera at a centralized
COVID-19 quarantine facility in northern Vietnam. Photo: Viettel

This is part of an urgent document which was sent to the Ministry of Information and Communications, the Ministry of National Defense, and Chairmen of People’s Committees. 

The MIC is in charge of directing departments of information and communications to manage camera installment and technical conditions. 

The Ministry of National Defense and local authorities bear the responsibility for camera installment at quarantine camps and make sure all footage could be extracted to help monitor suspected COVID-19 carriers currently in isolation.

All records of a quarantined person, as well as of the inspection and supervision process, must be kept at the quarantine camps. 

Earlier, the National Steering Committee planned to install 3,000 surveillance cameras in centralized quarantine facilities in northern Vietnamese provinces.

One-third of the number of surveillance cameras was installed within five days in 130 quarantine wards in 125 communes of northern Bac Giang Province, which is currently a coronavirus hotbed in Vietnam with 1,156 local infections.

As of early May 31, Viet Nam is currently placing 150,471 people in centralized quarantine, including 5,067 at hospitals, 30,307 at concentrated facilities, and the remaining at their residences.

The country documented 5,733 domestically-transmitted cases and 1,503 imported ones./.