Facing epidemic without surrender

​Taking the large-scale Covid-19 test samples for people in Tan Phong Ward, Bien Hoa City 

Many infected cases found in the quarantine area

Director of Dong Nai CDC (Center for Disease Control) Bach Thai Binh said that Dong Nai Province carried out a large-scale Covid-19 testing campaign from August 18 to August 31. This is the largest-scale screening test campaign so far in the province. Within half a month, the authorized forces have conducted 03 rounds of testing for more than 2 million people in the province. The aim is to detect the F0 cases early to seperate them from the community and prevent the epidemic from spreading. As a result, more than 10,000 F0 cases were detected for quarantine and treatment. Although the overall campaign has ended, the localities are still continuing to carry out additional testing to further separate the F0 cases in the community. As a result, every day recorded about 1,000 new infections.

According to the statistics of the authorized forces, the positive cases of Covid-19 in recent days have been mostly detected in the concentrated quarantine areas, the lockdown areas and there is only a very small number of cases recorded outside the community.

Specifically, most of the lockdown areas where new infections were detected are workers’ hostels with high population density. In these areas, the epidemic has penetrated deeply and spread through many layers, from the F0 cases to the F1 and F2 cases, even the F3 and the F4 cases. Therefore, it is not easy to remove all the F0 cases in these areas at once. In the concentrated quarantine areas, it is necessary to frankly admit that there is a situation of cross-infection even though the number is not large. In addition, most of the infected cases in the quarantine areas were the F1 cases who were infected from outside, when they were brought into the quarantine areas and tested, they were found to be positive for the Covid-19.

In order to prevent the epidemic continuing to spread in the coming days, according to the leader of the Department of Health, they will continue to conduct the screening tests in hostels in order to detect the F0 cases early and take them to treatment. At the same time, the F1 cases will be put in the concentrated quarantine areas. An equally important solution is to find a way to expand the population density of the hostels and to avoid gathering too many people in the same narrow-sized hostel as in the past time. Because in the hostels, there is only 1 case of the F0, the risk of spreading to the whole hostel is very high.

For the concentrated quarantine areas, the most important solution is to strictly manage them so that no situation of cross-infection occurs. Thereby, it reduces the new cases, the load on the treatment facilities for Covid-19 patient from the 1^st to the 3^rd floor and the patient death rate.

 
Checking the activities at hostels in Nhon Trach District 

Continue the "fighting"

Vaccination against the Covid-19 is considered a strategy in the epidemic prevention and control. Currently, the whole province has more than 1 million people aged 18 and over being vaccinated against the Covid-19. It is expected that by the end of this week, about 1.5 million people will be vaccinated. If Dong Nai Province is allocated more vaccines by the Government, it is likely that by September 15, the province will have about 90% of people aged 18 and over receiving 1^st dose of the Covid-19 vaccine. Dong Nai Province has sent a written request to the Ministry of Health to provide an additional 3 million doses of vaccines and is still waiting for the allocation of the Ministry of Health. The vaccine will be immediately deployed to meet the needs of the people.

In the face of complicated developments of the epidemic, the leaders of the health sector called on every citizen to be aware of the outbreak of the epidemic which has directly affected their lives, jobs, families and the whole society. Thereby, each person must always raise their self-awareness and strictly abide by the regulations on the Covid-19 epidemic prevention and control. In the fight against with this hidden enemy, we must not back down, not be pessimistic, to surrender to the epidemic. Because if you get discouraged and step back, the number of Covid-19 infections will continue to increase and the number of deaths will also increase. The whole political system must continue to unite, persevere and mobilize all resources to fight against with the epidemic. Along with the coverage of vaccines and herd immunity, hopefully we will soon return to a new normal life. 

Viet Anh