Deputy Prime Minister Vu Duc Dam requested the relevant agencies to prepare to implement the health declaration nationwide from March 10 at the latest.

With the emergence of more Covid-19 cases in recent days, Deputy Prime Minister Vu Duc Dam said that after winning the opening campaign in the first phase of the fight against Covid-19, Vietnam has stepped into stage 2 when the 17th case emerges. This is a more difficult period when the epidemic has spread to more than 100 countries, so the disease now needs to be prevented from hundreds of places. However, Vietnam has foreseen every situation and had a scenario of there being thousands more of cases. Therefore, in the coming days, if there are dozens or hundreds of infections, it would not be too surprising.

Regarding country entries, the Steering Committee has discussed and agreed on the proposals with the Prime Minister. The Government suspended the unilateral visa exemption for the countries of the European Union (EU) and the UK. For non-EU countries with more than 500 cases or more than 50 cases increased in a day, it is also suggested to suspend; refuse to grant a visa for foreigners to enter Vietnam if there are symptoms and epidemiological factors as regulated.

Vietnam has executed mandatory medical declarations for all people who enter Vietnam. However, this is not enough, so the Deputy Prime Minister stressed that it is necessary to apply medical declarations for all Vietnamese people so that they will all join, unite, and fight together. The declared information must be strictly managed, which is only used for the epidemics, not for other purposes.

The Deputy Prime Minister requested that the Ministry of Information and Communications, the Ministry of Health, Vietnam Social Security, the network operators and information technology units to urgently complete the organization plan and technological tools so that from March 10 at the latest, the people’s health declaration of the whole country will be carried out.

In the coming days, it is essential to continue to uphold the discipline, responsibility, and strictly implement the direction of the Secretariat of the Communist Party of Vietnam, the Government, the Prime Minister, the National Steering Committee, etc. Besides, review all guidance and improve to create the most accurate, simple and easy-to-understand instructions to help people get knowledge about the epidemic, what to do and what not to do to combat the epidemic, etc.

At the same time, another task is to strengthen preventive measures, recommend Vietnamese people to restrict from going abroad or going to countries having Covid-19 infected people. One should go to those places if really necessary and must be fully equipped with sufficient knowledge to ensure safety.

The Deputy Prime Minister believes that if the whole population is of the same mind to fight against the epidemic, we would definitely overcome the Covid-19 epidemic as the Vietnamese people had repeatedly succeeded.