Da Nang Party Committee Secretary Nguyen Van Quang on Monday afternoon called on officials to continue taking proactive action to enable appropriate measures to tackle resurgence in COVID-19 cases.

Mr Quang also called for faster, more extensive testing, and contact-tracing to break the chains of transmission and quickly find the source of new infections.

Da Nang Party Committee Secretary Nguyen Van Quang (left) calls for continued efforts to break the chains of transmission and quickly find the source of new infections on Monday afternoon. Photo: PHAN CHUNG

Secretary Quang said that Da Nang now finds it very hard in conducting contact tracing and quarantining for close contacts of some new cases with unknown source. The city is facing new threats and challenges in the face of complicated and unpredictable progression of the epidemic across the country in addition to the increasing number of arrivals from COVID-19 affected areas and people who provided false and misleading information for medical workers, he remarked.

Mr Quang urged officials to not be subjective, neglect in the city’s fight against deadly virus, reinfore their local responses to COVID-19. The focus must be paid on taking proactive steps to tackle new infections by speeding up their contact tracing and surveillance efforts in an attempt to curb the spread of the virus, he instructed.

The city party chief asked local government and health officials to roll out rapid tests for households and businesses in order to generate proper COVID-19 risk assessment in addition to taking action to enable reasonable measures to minimise risk of coronavirus in residential settings and industrial parks.

Mr Quang also highlighted the significance of enhancing surveillance on all arrivals and returnees from affected areas and enforcing regulations to have hash penalties for falsing health information in a bid to reduce the risk of COVID-19 posed by these people.

Municipal People's Committee Chairman Le Trung Chinh directed the health agency to quickly track down  all contacts of new infected patients and not miss any cases to slow the spread of the virus.

The city leader called for necessary measures to prevent and control cross-transmission of COVID-19 in all managed quarantine facilities.

Mr Chinh called on business operators and every one across Da Nang to take action to shield and protect themselves and others from the deadly virus during the pademic, with a focus on sticking to the 5K recommendations of the Ministry of Health or face strictest penalties for non-compliance. 

Da Nang on Monday (July 12) recorded 17 new postive cases, bringing the cumulative total to 115 after the resurgence of COVID-19 on June 18.

More than 4,500 contacts of new confirmed cases have got tested for the virus.

The task force staffing checkpoints at points of entry on Monday conducted COVID-19 related stop checks on 53,998 vehicles entering the city, during which, 48 vehicles were denied entry into the Da Nang, along with 76,028 arrivals had their body temperature measured and were required to complete a compulsory health declaration form.

Reporting by PHAN CHUNG – Translating by H.L