A business in Đồng Nai Province’s Biên Hòa 2 Industrial Park is disinfected. Businesses in the province are taking strict measures to protect their workers against COVID-19. – Photo baodongnai.com.vn

ĐỒNG NAI – Businesses in Đồng Nai Province’s industrial parks are taking strict measures to protect themselves against COVID-19 and the risk of transmission from HCM City, which is currently the third largest COVID-19 hotspot in the country.

Phạm Văn Cường, deputy head of Đồng Nai Industrial Zones Authority’s management board, said that local businesses faced a high risk because the province is adjacent to HCM City.

Busy trade occurs daily between HCM City and Đồng Nai so there is a risk of COVID entering the province’s 32 industrial parks that employ more than 1.2 million workers, some of whom reside in HCM City and travel back and forth every day.

Phan Huy Anh Vũ, director of the province’s Department of Health, said that some HCM City residents who work in Đồng Nai and tested positive for COVID have had contact with locals in the province.

On June 8 the province recorded the first F1 case (close contact with an infected person or F0) in Biên Hòa City’s Amata Industrial Park. The local Centre for Disease Control immediately began working with authorities to trace and quarantine contacts.

The province has identified 111 F1 cases and around 5,600 F2 cases related to HCM City patients over the last two weeks.

Businesses at the industrial parks are trying to maintain production while staying safe from COVID. They have been following strict preventive measures, with some preparing living spaces so that experts and workers can stay in Đồng Nai instead of returning to their homes in other areas.

Lê Đức Vinh, operation director of Fujitsu Việt Nam at Biên Hòa 2 Industrial Park, said that his company had been raising staff awareness about the pandemic and how to stay safe. The company also has health clinic rooms with quarantine areas.

Meanwhile, Đồng Nai Province has issued regulations to manage HCM City residents who enter the province for work. Businesses using buses to transport their workers from HCM City have to register their bus number plates and provide a list of workers and pick-up and drop-off locations.

All workers who enter the province have to make a health declaration and have their temperature taken at pandemic inspection stations.

The province is also carrying out random COVID-19 tests at industrial parks.

The Đồng Nai Industrial Zones Authority is instructing businesses to carry out inspections and evaluate COVID-19 risks in their workplaces and dormitories. The province said it might suspend production activities in areas vulnerable to COVID transmission.

Đồng Nai is among the top provinces in Việt Nam in terms of exports and production. In 2020 it ranked sixth in exports. – VNS