Re-starting production and business activities after Tet (Lunar New Year) is extremely necessary on the basis of strictly practising compulsory measures against COVID-19, especially as immigrants return to the city for residence, study and work.

Da Nang People's Committee Chairman Le Trung Chinh is seen delivering instructions at the Friday meeting with representatives from functional local bodies on how to keep the city out of the deadly coronavirus after Tet breaks

The aforementioned instruction was made by Da Nang People's Committee Chairman Le Trung Chinh at the Friday meeting with representatives from functional local bodies on how to keep coronavirus out of Da Nang after Tet breaks.

“The fact that no community-transmitted cases of COVID-19 were reported in Da Nang during Tet breaks demonstrates the great effort and determination of the city’s entire political system. However, our mission has to continue in the time ahead and there is a must-do to focus on maintaining many measures against the pandemic after Tet”, emphasised Chairman Chinh. 

The municipal government chief demanded that all of businesses based inside and outside industrial parks, trade centers, supermarkets, convenience store systems across Da Nang make a list of their workers who left and return to Da Nang to work after Tet breaks, with a focus on the specific address of the place where each of them stayed at work.

Any cases in which returnees from coronavirus-hit locales without making medical declarations to functional agencies or subject to compulsory quarantine must be  immediately reported to the Da Nang Department of Health and relevant agencies for  appropriate intervention.

Functional local bodies must develop plans for monitoring and take random samples (10 - 20%) from returnees from coronavirus-hit locales nationwide for corionavirus testing.

According to doctor Ngo Thi Kim Yen, Director of the Da Nang Department of Health, starting from 29 January, the local medical staff began conducting contact tracing on all arrivals from coronavirus-stricken Vietnamese localities

As of the afternoon of 19 February, Da Nang had detected and quarantined 999 arrivals from coronavirus-hit localities such as Hai Duong and Quang Ninh, and all of them must have their samples taken for SARS-CoV-2 testing for 1 – 3 times.

No COVID-19 cases linked to the newly discovered outbreaks in some Vietnamese localities have been recorded in Da Nang till date.

Currently, functional forces, namely medical workers, the police, the army and the militia, plus hundreds of Youth Union members and youths across Da Nang, over recent days, have actively been duty around the clock at COVID-19 prevention checkpoints set up the city’s entrances.

Da Nang government has recently approved the deployment of highly convenient apps for managing those who enter and leave the city in a bid to keep Da Nang free from COVID-19, amid the pandemic has still raged in some Vietnamese localities over recent times.

According to Colonel Tran Dinh Chung, Deputy Director of the Da Nang Police Department, as of 19 February, the police force had inspected 9,000 vehicles of all types with a combined total of 34,000 people entering and leaving the city through the total 14 checkpoints.

By PHAN CHUNG – Translated by A.T