At Monday’s meeting of Da Nang Steering Committee for COVID-19 Prevention and Control, municipal People's Committee Vice Chairwoman Ngo Thi Kim Yen called for the acceleration of the city’s booster vaccination program. She also highlighted the need to identify who are missing vaccination and reach them with lifesaving vaccines.

Vice Chairwoman Ngo Thi Kim Yen chaired Monday’s meeting of Da Nang Steering Committee for COVID-19 Prevention and Control. Photo: LE HUNG

Data published by the health agency shows that more than 2,000 people in Da Nang have yet to receive a single jab for many reasons. Mrs Yen demanded the municipal Department of Justice to give advice to the municipal government to impose punishments on those who refuse to get vaccinated against COVID-19 without medical reasons. She emphasized that such unvaccinated people must take responsibility for becoming infected with COVID-19.

The health sector was tasked to speed up the city’s COVID-19 vaccination program, and get ready to offer life-saving COVID-19 jabs to younger children after getting approval from the Ministry of Health.

Mrs Yen stressed the need for classification of COVID-19 patients under home-based isolation and care into 2 categories, consisting of low and high risk patients in order to provide effective support for them to help low-risk patients make a full recovery from the illness, and prevent high-risk patients from getting worse to avoid placing a great burden on local health system.

Vice Chairwoman Yen urged COVID-19 infected patients across the city to report their disease voluntarily in order to timely access to appropriate medical care and support to help them recover from COVID-19. She recommended infected patients to not follow unscientific medical practices circulating on social media platforms that could result in severe health complications.

Mrs Yen asked the municipal Department of Education and Training to daily report new COVID-19 cases in schools, especially preschools and primary schools, to the municipal Steering Committee for COVID-19 Prevention and Control in order to enable appropriate measures to be taken to prevent the spread of the virus. In addition, the heed must be paid to providing specific guidance for handling COVID-19 cases in schools in an attempt to keep schools open during the pandemic.

Reporting by LE HUNG – translating by H.L