HCM City faces huge challenges in latest COVID-19 fight

The outbreak which occurred at a Christian mission and emerged late last month is considered to be the largest in the southern city amid the fourth COVID-19 wave, which had been brought under control. However, a series of F0 cases with unknown sources of infection have since been found among the community.

The developments relating to the pandemic continue to be unpredictable, with more cases being found in production areas and hospitals, thereby posing a major challenge to the municipal health sector in attempting to slow the spread of the disease.

According to data regarding COVID-19 cases in the early days of Ho Chi Minh City's enforcement of social distancing measures under Government Directive 15, many community cases were recorded, although many times their source of infection was unknown. Worryingly, cases are showing signs of increasing in industrial zones.

Two days ago, functional forces of Binh Tan district in the southern metropolis put Trung Son Food Joint Stock Company in the Tan Tao Industrial Park into lockdown in order to take samples from more than 800 workers and employees for contact tracing due to the detection of two F0 cases. Of the total, about 140 F1 workers were subsequently sent to concentrated isolation facilities, with the rest being put into quarantine at factories.

This comes after roughly 600 employees of Van Duc Food Company Limited in Vinh Loc Industrial Park of Binh Chanh district were also sent to concentrated isolation facilities on June 15 following the detection of one F0 case related to the infection chain at a mechanical workshop.

Local cases have been found, not only in industrial parks, but also at hospitals, which had been protected against COVID-19 with strict "layers".

Currently, six hospitals in the southern city have reported medical staff infected with COVID-19.

According to information released by Deputy Minister of Health Nguyen Truong Son, an additional two weeks of social distancing is seen as a prerequisite opportunity to complete pandemic control work. If anti-pandemic regulations are strictly followed, it will serve to help limit the spread of the virus among the community, otherwise it will become a huge challenge when dealing with the impact of the pandemic.

“If local residents do not strictly follow the directives of Ho Chi Minh City and the Government, the opportunity will be missed out and the fight against the pandemic will become more difficult than ever,” Deputy Minister Son emphasised.

The southern metropolis has registered more than 1,250 domestic cases so far. Between May 26 and June 16, over 628,120 test samples of F1 and F2 cases were taken for COVID-19 testing, of which more than 64,700 samples came back with negative results, with more than 7,150 still waiting for their results.

Upon giving an assessment of the current pandemic situation in the southern metropolis, Truong Huu Khanh, an infectious disease epidemiologist at Children's Hospital 1, described the number of cases detected in the community as just the tip of the COVID-19 iceberg.

“The number of additional cases in the community is now identified as wandering F0 ones, while new cases discovered in isolation areas may be due to the slow testing of F1 contacts. This is a huge risk because isolated F1 cases were slowly detected to be positive, and then community F2 cases have already became F0 ones which are not found early,”  Khanh stated.

Amid the context of many F0 cases going undetected within the community, competent agencies are making all-out efforts to take advantage of social distancing opportunities in order trace many related cases. This is being done to promptly prevent the spread of the virus among the wider community, while encouraging people to strictly comply with 5K regulations set out the Ministry of Health to lessen the risk of infection.