During her meeting with members of the Da Nang Steering Committee for COVID-19 Prevention and Control in late afternoon on Friday, November 19, municipal City People's Committee Vice Chairwoman Ngo Thi Kim Yen highlighted the need to take all necessary measures to ensure safe and effective vaccine administration for school pupils as the city began vaccinating students in Grades 8 and 9 against COVID-19 from today, November 20.

Vice Chairwoman Yen called for better coordination between the health agency, Department of Education and Training along with authorities at local level to ensure safe and effective vaccine administration for school pupils at Friday’s meeting. Photo: LE HUNG

She also urged citywide schools to make thorough preparation for the return of their students on campus. The education sector was tasked to create a plan to safely resume in-person teaching for primary schools.

In addition, the health agency was asked to ramp up its efforts to set up mobile medical stations and groups of medical workers to take care of COVID-19 patients at home.

Mrs Yen stressed the need for authorities at local level to make every effort to secure timely access to COVID-19 vaccines for all eligible people in their local areas.

The municipal Department of Police was directed to speed up updates of the identification codes of Years 6 and 7 students on the National Immunization Management System in order to complete it in late next week to enable the coronavirus vaccination rollout for these students to be carried out in Da Nang as planned.

Vice Chairwoman Yen also instructed authorities at local level to generate accurate risk assessment in their local areas in order to enable appropriate measures to be taken to respond to local outbreaks.

The authorities in Son Tra District were tasked to continue their efforts in dealing local outbreaks and give their recommendations to the municipal government to allow An Hai Bac and Nai Hien Dong wards to go down one COVID-19 alert level to return alert level 2 after the COVID-19 situation in the two wards is remarkably improved.

Vice Chairwoman Yen also called for better coordination between the tourism sector and relevant agencies along with authorities at local level to welcome back international tourists safely under the national government’s pilot scheme.

Da Nang has till date recorded 422 positive cases after it has experienced a resurgence of COVID-19 cases since October 16.

Twenty-three additional COVID-19 patients were discharged from Da Nang’s hospitals on Friday, November 19, according to latest figures from the Municipal Steering Committee for COVID-19 Prevention and Control.

There are just 294 remaining active cases of COVID-19 that are being treated in hospitals.

Reporting by LE HUNG – translating by H.L