Vietnam urges private hospitals to provide complete care for Covid-19 patients.
REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, HANOI — Vietnam’s Ministry of Health on Thursday (29/7) urged private hospitals to participate in treating COVID-19 patients. The Southeast Asian nation is battling a rise in infections triggered by the highly contagious Delta variant.
After successfully containing the virus for a long time during the pandemic, Vietnam is facing a record rise in daily infections since a spike in cases in late April. Vietnam reported 133,000 cases during the pandemic, 85 percent of which were recorded over the past month.
“The Delta variant destroys all anti-pandemic gains,” Health Minister Nguyen Thanh Long said at a cabinet meeting on Friday. reuters, Friday (30/7).
Private health facilities must provide beds, equipment and staff to treat COVID-19 patients when requested by authorities, the ministry said in a separate statement. Vietnam has maintained a policy that requires citizens confirmed positive for COVID-19 to be treated in government hospitals.
However, as the number of cases increases rapidly and hospital occupancy increases, people in the asymptomatic case class at the epicenter of the Ho Chi Minh City outbreak are allowed to self-isolate at home. During a visit to the city on Friday, President Nguyen Xuan Phuc urged authorities to speed up vaccination implementation.
Vietnam has a population of 98 million people. The country has so far administered 5.5 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine, but only about 550,000 people have been fully vaccinated. Authorities will bear the blame if vaccinations keep slowing down, Phuc told city officials.
“We are trying to put out the fire, not just to prevent people from getting burned,” he said.
The rapid spread of infection has prompted restrictions on the movement of people in nearly a third of the country. Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City are now under lockdown. In 17 southern provinces, restrictions were also imposed.
Dozens of temporary wards for patient care have been installed in a number of factories and plantations that have been converted. Vietnam reported 1,022 deaths from COVID-19 during the pandemic, although the actual figure is expected to be slightly higher.
Citing data from the Ho Chi Minh City disease control center, the state newspaper Tien Phong said on Thursday the death toll in the city stood at 1,057.
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