Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc: Social isolation does not mean prohibiting traffic or locking down society

The meeting was held online, connecting 21 ministries, ministerial-level agencies, 7 government agencies and Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City.

In his opening speech, Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc said the meeting took place in the context of Covid-19 becoming a global pandemic, infecting more than 200 countries and territories, with hundreds of thousands of people infected and tens of thousands of deaths.

In such a context, General Secretary and President Nguyen Phu Trong has called on the entire Party, the entire army, and the entire people to unite and be determined to fight the epidemic and achieve good results. The Prime Minister has issued Directives 15 and 16 on epidemic prevention measures, and in Directive 16 issued on March 31, the issue of social isolation is raised.

Explaining further on this issue, the Prime Minister clarified that social isolation is a legal situation that is not against the law to protect the health and lives of the people. Social isolation means keeping distance in society to deal with dangerous situations, disease outbreaks, keeping distance between people and people, between communities, not prohibiting traffic, not yet locking down society but only restricting traffic. In that context, we still have to maintain the circulation of goods, safe production, especially essential goods, medical supplies, export goods, especially exports by sea and road are still normal. Ensure normal working from home, good quality of work, especially working time. In the recently issued Directive 16, it is also stated that it will be effective within 15 days, this is the "golden time" to minimize the spread of infection to the community, a problem that some countries have encountered.

"If we are not determined in this matter, the consequences for people's health and lives will be unpredictable," the Prime Minister stated.

In that context, the Prime Minister affirmed: "The Vietnamese Government is proactively controlling all situations." The Prime Minister cited the World Bank's assessment (in the East Asia and Pacific Report in the time of Covid-19, which was just released on the afternoon of March 31) that the Vietnamese economy remained resilient to external shocks in the first few months of 2020, did not collapse, and achieved the highest growth rate.

In the first quarter of 2020, growth reached 3.82%, the lowest level in the past 11 years but the highest figure among countries with data available up to this point.

With integration conditions like Vietnam, we have tried to maintain the necessary pace. The government has made efforts to ensure social security, especially taking care of the people, especially the unemployed.

The Prime Minister said that today, the Government will discuss a resolution on this important social security package.

“The Government will continue to discuss and issue policies and measures to remove difficulties for production and business, promote public investment, and ensure security and order, but first and foremost, assess the most direct impact of this issue on social security for the people,” said the Prime Minister.

The next 15 days are the decisive time to prevent the epidemic. If we are determined to isolate society and isolate people from each other, we will limit the loss of human lives. Therefore, the Prime Minister requested strict implementation of the policies and measures that the Government has stated. All levels and sectors must focus on directing the drastic implementation of possible solutions to effectively prevent the epidemic from spreading in the community.

The Prime Minister emphasized: “I request that heads of enterprises and production and business establishments take responsibility for applying epidemic prevention and control measures at their establishments, ensuring the health and safety of the people. I would like to reiterate that the next 15 days will be decisive in determining whether the epidemic will break out widely or not in our country”. The Prime Minister hopes that "every person, every house, every business, every neighborhood, every hamlet, every village, every commune, every district, every province, every city will be a fortress to prevent the epidemic. Every Vietnamese citizen is a soldier to prevent and fight the epidemic"./.