Chaired by Phuc, the virtual meeting was held among thegovernment’s standing members, the National Steering Committee for COVID-19Prevention and Control and 63 cities and provinces to look back on COVID-19response over the past year.
Vietnam has accurately assessed how dangerous theCOVID-19 was since the outset of the pandemic, activated the national diseaseprevention system in time and swiftly adopted solutions suitable to thepandemic development and the nation’s capacity, the PM said. The successfulcontainment of COVID-19 has strengthened people’s confidence in the Party’ssound leadership and the State’s policies, he added.
The Government leader moved on to highlight lessonslearned from the COVID-19 response, with international cooperation deemed as veryimportant. Vietnam has actively proposed initiatives and responsibly engaged inthe international community’s collaborative endeavour in addressing globalchallenges, he noted, citing as an example the United Nations GeneralAssembly’s endorsement of Vietnam’s initiative of making December 27 as the InternationalDay of Epidemic Preparedness.
The PM asked all ministries, governmental agencies and provincial-levelPeople’s Committees to continue rigorously enforcing orders made by thegovernment and the National Steering Committee for COVID-19 Prevention andControl alongside instructions by the Ministry of Health and keeping up guardagainst the novel coronavirus. Welfare assistance must also continue to begiven to affected enterprises and people, he said.
Phuc urged the Ministry of Health and localities toprovide safe COVID-19 vaccination to people, consider imports of COVID-19vaccines from different sources, and speed up domestic vaccine production.Vietnam must roll out a home-grown COVID-19 vaccine in 2022 at the latest, hesaid.
Vietnam confirmed 2,560 COVID-19 cases as of March 17morning, of which 2,186 cases, or 85.4 percent, had been given the all-clear, while339 are under treatment and 35 were dead, according to the Ministry ofHealth./.
VNA