Minister, Head of the Government Office: Depending on the situation, the Government will decide whether to stop social distancing or not

How does the Minister evaluate the implementation of social distancing in localities after 1 week of the Prime Minister's Directive 16? How effective has the social distancing solution been so far?

Social distancing is an unprecedentedly strong solution, supported and well implemented by the people and authorities at all levels. There is active participation from the Ministry of National Defense, Health, Public Security and other ministries and branches.

Many localities have taken strong action, offering strong and fundamental solutions. They have even set up checkpoints to check body temperature, conduct rapid tests, and screen undeclared entrants...

But in some places, people are still subjective and neglect social distancing. For example, the recent gathering of Catholics in Ha Tinh, or the crowded temples, jostling each other, and then lining up to enter factories like going to a festival.

This is very dangerous, if not careful, like the lessons from other countries, there will be damage that cannot save people's lives.

The law must condemn such actions. We must maintain social distancing to avoid infection. If we do this well, keeping the level of not needing to declare a health emergency will be successful.

The Prime Minister's viewpoint is to continue to strictly implement Directive 16 to tightly control, require localities to strictly enforce, criticize and remind localities that still allow large gatherings to occur, and strictly handle violations.

As the Deputy Minister of Health commented, in reality, recently some provinces have gone a bit overboard with social distancing. Some provinces have issued documents quarantining people coming from Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, while others have banned people from Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City from coming, or Ha Long has directed people to go to the market more than twice a day. How does the Government view these actions?

Prime Minister's Directive 16 has some unprecedented actions. Some localities are determined to prevent the epidemic, understand the concept of village isolation, commune isolation... but people are stubborn, thinking that management is divided into small areas, isolated in the locality.

But there are positive things, many localities have come up with strong, creative solutions, such as Hanoi establishing temperature control stations, rapid testing, and zoning to find people related to the outbreak at Bach Mai Hospital.

However, there are also localities that are impatient and have issued strong regulations, claiming that Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City currently have a large number of infections, so they have declared them epidemic areas, requiring local residents to quarantine for 14 days and pay for the quarantine themselves. Then there is even the issue of not allowing vehicles from other provinces to enter...

After such incidents, the Prime Minister assigned the Government Office to notify the Prime Minister's opinion to explain and provide clearer instructions on Directive 16. After that document was issued and passed through the press agencies, the localities would be clearer.

On the night of April 1 and 2, my phone was constantly hot, and interested press agencies kept calling. I think it is not a common practice, so there are different interpretations, but after the guidance document and press information, so far, basically the local authorities have agreed. Like Hai Phong, the quarantine is self-funded.

At the recent Government Standing Committee meeting, the Prime Minister said that localities must study and properly implement legal regulations. The issue of collecting or not collecting must have a basis to create convenience for the people.

The Prime Minister's principle and guiding spirit is to limit people from going out but not to "block rivers and ban markets" or to create traffic barriers on the roads. This will cause production and business activities to stagnate.

If we are subjective, our efforts to fight the epidemic will be in vain.

As the Minister said, many localities currently consider Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City to be epidemic areas, so they treat people from these places as if they were from epidemic areas. So how do we understand what an epidemic area is in these cases?

It is true that each newspaper understands the concept of an epidemic area differently. Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City have a large number of infections, with two major outbreaks being Bach Mai Hospital and Buddha Bar. For example, Bach Mai Hospital has a huge number of people involved, if we don't do a good job, it will be unpredictable. They consider it an epidemic area because Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City have the highest number of infections.

But we can trust one thing, even though the number of infections is so high, we have been able to contain and manage it. The number of infections in centralized quarantine areas will be managed immediately, not allowing it to spread in the community; as for the cases outside, the F1 and F2 sources have been traced.

At the Government Standing Committee meeting on April 6, the Prime Minister mentioned preparing scenarios and solutions for the second wave of the Covid-19 outbreak. Could the Minister elaborate on the Prime Minister's idea? Will the social distancing period be extended beyond April 15?

The Prime Minister concluded that we must maintain and strictly implement Directive 16, the period of social isolation is still maintained from April 1-15 to evaluate, considering this a very fundamental and most important solution, because we have prevented the possibility of infection from outside. We must handle and find F0 cases. If we strictly follow the regulations in Directive 16, we will prevent community infection and cross-infection.

By April 15, if there are no unexpected cases, social isolation will be stopped. However, if an outbreak occurs, Directive 16 cannot be stopped. At that time, we have to depend on the situation and come up with a timely response plan. We dare not say anything in advance.

The Prime Minister said we must not be subjective, if we are subjective, our efforts to fight the epidemic will be wasted.