Covid-19 weekly update in Vietnam - Week 4 August, 2021

---

GENERAL SUMMARY
Since week 3 August, the pandemic in Vietnam has had a tendency to get worse and loose in the prevention tasks. The statistics are bound to increase dramatically once again.

Besides the increasing number of patients per day, Vietnam was still able to announce some great news. First of all, the Ministry of Health stated that there were 3 new infection zones restrained under control. They were the zones found in the province of Hai Duong, Quang Nam and Da Nang (one of the great pearls among Vietnam’s most favorable coastal tourist destinations). Specifically, Da Nang only confirmed under 5 new patients per day, which is a great decrease in the number of new infections. Even the two hospitals, which were priorly under isolation, are now released and ready to treat new patients again. The other two provinces confirmed the similar situation, there were no more than 20 new infections per day and everything is now under control of the responsible forces.

Secondly, some patients who had been suffering from both covid-19 and the background disease of kidney failure, were confirmed to have recovered from Covid-19. It shows that the efforts of medical staff have finally paid off and the other patients will soon be better.

Meanwhile, even when the pandemic is raging wildly in the open environment, there has been no detection of a re-infection case. The patients that recovered from covid-19 haven’t had any symptoms showing that they might catch the virus again. Still, the authorities, doctors and voluntary individuals are staying highly cautious towards all possibilities.
At the same time, the Ministry of Health announced new information concerning multiple issues of the Coronavirus:
1. 20 background diseases that may worsen the health of Covid-19 patients
           + Diabetes mellitus
           + Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and other lung diseases
           + Cancer (especially hematologic malignancies, lung cancer and other metastatic cancers)
           + Chronic kidney disease
           + Organ transplant or hematopoietic stem cell transplant
           + Obesity, overweight
           + Cardiovascular disease (heart failure, coronary artery disease or cardiomyopathy)
           + Cerebrovascular disease.
           + Down syndrome
           + HIV AIDS
           + Neuropathy (including dementia)
           + Sickle cell disease, thalassemia, other chronic hematological diseases
           + Asthma
           + Hypertension
           + Immune deficiency
           + Liver failure
           + Substance use disorder
           + Are being treated with corticosteroids or other immunosuppressive drugs
           + Systemic diseases

2. The order of symptoms of most SARS-CoV-2 cases:
A usual case of SARS-CoV will be likely to experience the following symptoms in order
           + Fever
           + Cough / Sore throat
           + Muscle pain
           + Vomit
           + Diarrhea
Thanks to this structure, it will be easy for doctors and medical staff to differentiate Covid-19 patients with those suffering from flu, especially at this time of the rainy season.

3. Online medical help taking place to assist F0 patients remotely
As the quarantines and hospitals are getting overloaded from time to time, the F0 cases are allowed to be treated and taken good care of at their own accommodation. These patients will now have an application helping them connect with doctors from far away. The doctors will follow the patients from the very first day, until he has fully recovered. By far, the application has been reviewed as helpful and necessary. The chance of spreading the virus in the open air is lessened, so is the possibility of cross infection in public, or in hospitals.

The medical staff in charge include doctors, teachers, senior year students, professors and professionals at Pham Ngoc Thach Medical University. They will take shifts in 3 different time periods: 8h00 - 10h00; 14h00 - 16h00; 18h00 - 20h00. They have already given assistance to over 500 patients and many more in the future. As long as the citizens need, they will be ready to help.

4.The summary on the reasons of death cases
According to professionals at the front line of the pandemic prevention campaign, people are wrong to think that the virus only damages a single organ like the lung. In fact, the virus tends to either attack multiple organs directly (other than the lung) or attack the immunity system of the body. It will decrease the ability to coagulate blood, which will eventually create thrombosis in both small and big veins. That’s why the patients of severe cases need to use the dialyzer, or else he might suffer from the death sentence.

HANOI PANDEMIC UPDATE
By far, it seems hard to tell if Hanoi is going to loosen the restrictions because the pandemic is still not showing any better signs. The new infections are still rising each day, staying at around 50-70 individuals infected per day. 
Since the pandemic situation in Hanoi still makes no positive changes, the authorities have checked all hospitals and medical facilities. The aim is to make sure that citizens will have the best healthcare service, for both covid-19 and non covid-19 patients. So far, they have evaluated 40 hospitals as safe, 13 others are judged safe at a low level while 3 are marked unsafe. The ones in the unsafe list will be suspended until they show new improvements in healthcare services.
During the past two weeks, the Centre of Disease Control (CDC) of Hanoi has isolated new infection zones. One is located in Thanh Xuan District, one in the residence of Linh Dam, Hoang Mai District and another one located around the Temple of Literature, Van Mieu Commune, Van Chuong Commune. These places are now under strict isolation until the responsible forces identify all hidden F0 cases and confirm that the areas are secure. The life conditions of these zones are bound to be quite difficult in the next few weeks. The medical staff are now speeding up in order to quickly detect the rest infected individuals within the isolated residences. Citizens are in the hope of ending this wide range quarantine as soon as possible.
In addition, the red zone of Linh Dam residence is considered the area with high risk of expansion. Explain to this, the CDC of Hanoi indicated that the local habitants had been going out of their apartment for certain reasons such as going to work, going shopping for groceries and necessary products, etc. This can cause virus expansion in the air, which is highly dangerous for any other families. Plus, the buildings mostly include small apartments with small corridors, which reduce the capability of air current. The virus can then stay in the air of each floor and become the source of infection for other civilians. Therefore, the medical forces are trying their best to practice covid tests, search for F0 and F1 patients to make sure a safe living environment for the whole area.

HO CHI MINH CITY PANDEMIC UPDATE
Ho Chi Minh City local habitants had been doing a great job in gradually minimizing the new cases per day until they confirmed sudden rises of more than 5.000 patients per day. Alarmingly, over 90% of which were the individuals detected in public. This number shows that the prevention and control of pandemic expansion were loosened at some point. Therefore, the city was to start a new campaign of wide range testing, starting with the red and orange zones to collect all infected ones before moving forward to the green zones. The process will take time so citizens should be patient and should remember to always follow the restrictions prudently. At the same time, citizens are advised to stay calm even when they receive the result of positive for Covid-19. Appropriate measures will be carried out to take care of the newly discovered patients so they will have nothing much to be worried about. Along with doctors, medical staff, and voluntary individuals, the Vietnamese army also joined hands to deliver tasks and reduce the amount of work for other responsible forces. During the past week, the soldiers helped distribute necessary products and groceries for local habitants in isolated areas. Some groups even went to the market and bought food for the whole residence. Many people were very grateful to have received such a big help from the army. Hopefully, the pandemic in Ho Chi Minh City will get better with the tireless efforts of various forces: Local authorities, medical staff, army soldiers, policemen, voluntary individuals, etc. Stay in touch with Trusted DMC for more weekly updates on Vietnam’s pandemic and tourism situation

* Source: VnExpress, HCDC, Sở Y Tế, Báo Tiền phong, Vietnamnet. Previous weeks updates
- Week 3. August 2021
- Week 2, August 2021