Need to add 'consciousness vaccine' to live with the disease when it has not been eliminated

It is impossible to eliminate the virus from the community - this is what health experts have long affirmed. Accordingly, to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic, with new virus strains appearing and having the ability to spread more dangerously, people have had to get used to the concepts of "5K", "new normal"...

Instead of chasing the epidemic, should we fight the epidemic in the following direction: Accept living with SARS-CoV-2, consider it an endemic disease and the only goal is to reduce the number of deaths from this disease. The National Steering Committee for COVID-19 Prevention and Control has set a strategy of "sequestering and confining" to gradually expand the "green zone" that is safe from the epidemic. Accordingly, this strategy is implemented flexibly according to the epidemic situation in each locality.

Assessing the new developments of the COVID-19 pandemic in the world and in the country, experts have long emphasized that to return to the "new normal" state, the necessary medical condition is to create community immunity through vaccination.

“Depending on the different variants, if the strain spreads little, community immunity only needs to reach 60-70%, but with the strain spreading strongly, the vaccination rate must reach 80-85%. Meanwhile, currently we only vaccinate people aged 18 and older, there are still about 30% of children who have not had access to the vaccine. This can also be considered a source of infection, although the disease level at this age is not as severe as in adults,” said Dr. Nguyen Hong Ha - Vice President of the Vietnam Infectious Diseases Association, former Deputy Director of the Central Hospital for Tropical Diseases.

Sharing the same opinion with experts, Dr. Hong Ha said that localities must assess the possibility of infection in the community. For example, there must be an assessment of the epidemic level through PCR testing and rapid antibody testing to see how many people are immune, how many people have the virus, from which to make a prognosis and come up with appropriate epidemic prevention and control policies.

5K and “consciousness vaccine”

According to Dr. Nguyen Dang Manh - Director of the Institute of Clinical Infectious Diseases (108 Military Central Hospital), complying with "5K" and improving physical condition to prevent disease is the best solution, improving the effectiveness of epidemic prevention to bring life back to the "new normal". Zoning and having reasonable social distancing measures for each region is of great significance to open production and economic development, helping to reduce the burden on social security for the people.

Accordingly, when implementing social distancing, it must be done more drastically, with a focus and key points. That is, in red zones, it is necessary to be drastic to quickly find F0, quarantine and treat them so that the red zone can quickly return to the green zone. In areas that need testing, human resources must be concentrated to quickly take samples and return results immediately, to immediately isolate and soon return that area to the green zone.

Dr. Tran Van Phuc, Saint Paul General Hospital (Hanoi) also said that each person needs two types of vaccines to effectively respond to the COVID-19 epidemic. The first is the vaccination vaccine - this is the weapon to prevent the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19 and causes a pandemic in the community.

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“People who have received a full dose of the COVID-19 vaccine still need to be equipped with a second vaccine. Because people who have received the vaccine can still get infected and have mild symptoms, or even no symptoms, leading to subjectivity and unintentionally becoming carriers of the disease, infecting relatives, friends and people around them,” said Dr. Phuc./.