Proposing the National Assembly to allow the continuation of some measures to prevent the COVID-19 epidemic until December 31, 2023

Covid-19 vaccination for medical staff at Nghe An General Hospital. Photo: Thanh Cuong

Recently, the Government and the Prime Minister have been proactive and creative in flexibly applying anti-epidemic measures in Resolution 30, based on closely following reality, assessing and forecasting the epidemic situation and relying on science.

In particular, the Government has successfully implemented the vaccine strategy identifying "vaccine as an important weapon". Even before the National Assembly Resolution 30 was issued, the Government resolutely directed, by all means, to access vaccines as soon as possible and as quickly as possible, with the motto "the best vaccine is the vaccine that is accessed earliest".

The Government has also made strategic decisions to adapt to each period of the pandemic. Up to now, Vietnam has achieved the goal of controlling the COVID-19 pandemic, bringing the country back to a new normal state, gradually recovering, stabilizing and developing the socio-economy.

It is known that the Ministry of Health has provided 164 SARS-CoV-2 testing products for COVID-19 prevention and control in urgent cases, including 9 domestically produced products and 155 imported products. As of September 22, 2022, more than 682,360 organizations and individuals have donated to the COVID-19 Vaccine Fund, with a total mobilized amount of nearly VND 10,540 billion.

By August 2022, through diplomatic work, Vietnam had mobilized nearly 120 million doses of vaccine from foreign aid, saving about 20,000 billion VND for the state budget... In 2021 alone, the actual budget for the Ministry of Health to purchase vaccines was more than 15,070 billion VND, of which nearly 7,670 billion VND came from the Vaccine Fund and more than 7,400 billion VND came from the state budget.

According to Resolution 30 of the National Assembly, urgent measures to prevent and control the COVID-19 pandemic will be implemented until December 31, 2022. However, the Government proposed that the National Assembly allow the continued implementation of some measures until December 31, 2023 in order to "continue to firmly maintain the achievements in preventing and controlling the pandemic and prevent the risk of complicated developments of the pandemic".

The Government also proposed that the National Assembly continue to allow the application of a number of special, specific, and exceptional policies on medical examination and treatment, medicine, vaccines, and medical equipment to promptly meet the requirements of COVID-19 prevention and control and people's health care.

Accordingly, medical examination and treatment facilities that are currently operating to admit and treat COVID-19 patients are allowed to continue operating according to practical requirements. The decision to establish and assign tasks to established facilities to admit and treat COVID-19 patients is allowed to be used as an operating license.

Along with that, it is allowed to continue paying for medical examination and treatment costs for COVID-19 patients at COVID-19 admission and treatment facilities guaranteed by the state budget according to actual costs; treatment costs for other diseases during COVID-19 treatment are implemented according to the provisions of the law on health insurance, medical examination and treatment are continued to be applied to ensure stable rights of patients.

In case the COVID-19 admission and treatment facility cannot separate the costs of medical examination and treatment for COVID-19 and other diseases to pay according to the sources, or cannot collect the costs that patients must pay according to regulations due to force majeure, the state budget will pay according to the Government's regulations...

VT