HCM City takes bold steps in COVID-19 response strategy

After changing anti-pandemic measures six times, the southern city's infection tally is starting to flatten, although the city has determined that counting every positive cases is no longer of great significance, with greater importance being placed on finding proper treatment methods.

As a way of preparing for the strategy aimed at limiting deaths, in mid-July the southern metropolis ensured that available human resources and medical equipment were moved to the area in order to give the correct treatment to severe cases as a means of reducing the death rate as much as possible.

Most notably, the F0 treatment model has been changed with 38 treatment facilities, providing a total of 46,000 beds in order to treat more than 41,000 cases.

The local health sector continues to expand treatment facilities and has moved to increase its emergency reception capacity to 100%, whilst also assigning the collection of asymptomatic F0 case to district-level medical facilities.

Furthermore, enhanced medical forces from various hospitals and localities, high-quality personnel, along with the participation of all directors of central-level specialised hospitals, have moved to the city as part of joint efforts to establish more treatment systems for COVID-19 patients.

The three intensive care centres offer 3,000 beds and were established together with the Ho Chi Minh City COVID-19 Resuscitation Hospital as a means of focusing on treating severe and critically-ill patients.

According to data released on August 4, hospitals in the city are treating F0 cases and 33,444 F0 cases, of which 1,035 critically-ill patients have been put on ventilators and 15 patients are now receiving ECMO support.

Along with this, Ho Chi Minh City also changed its vaccination strategy in an effort to increase coverage in the fastest manner possible, with the total number of vaccination units increasing to 1,200, a figure that is double the original plan.

The city has also streamlined some procedures taking place both before and after vaccination, such as simplifying screening for people under 65 years of age and for those suffering without underlying diseases. This serves to reduce the follow-up time after injection from 30 minutes to 15 minutes with healthy people.

According to Duong Anh Duc, vice chairman of the City People's Committee, currently roughly two million local citizens have received their first shots of COVID vaccines, while 70,000 have already got their second jab. The city has requested the Government continuously provide vaccines to ensure that an additional 5.5 million doses are administered in August.

Local authorities aim to inoculate all people around 18 years old, with this set to extend throughout the entire city, which has a population of roughly at about 7 million.

If the vaccine supply and progress are ensured, then the vaccination rate for people aged 18 and above may hit between 70% and 80% by the end of August.

Deputy Prime Minister Vu Duc Dam, who is also head of the National Steering Committee for COVID-19 Prevention and Control, has also asked Ho Chi Minh City to focus on treating COVID-19 patients in critical condition. At present the involvement of various hospitals in COVID-19 treatment also ensures that important places are given sufficient medical supplies.

As of  the morning of August 5, Ho Chi Minh City documented a further 2,349 local cases of COVID-19, raising the infection count since the start of the latest wave of the pandemic that hit the nation more than three months ago to more than 108,000.