Prime Minister Nguyễn Xuân Phúc on Friday chaired a meeting with the Government on the implementation of social distancing rules for 15 days to combat COVID-19. —VNA/VNS Photo

HÀ NỘI — Prime Minister Nguyễn Xuân Phúc on Friday reiterated the Government’s determination to protect public health in spite of having to sacrifice short-term economic gain.

At a meeting with the Government on the implementation of social distancing rules for 15 days to combat COVID-19, he said it was time to mobilise all forces to prevent and control the pandemic. However, a number of localities have misunderstood social distancing measures.

He urged sectors and localities to implement the measures quickly.

The Government has drafted a resolution on social welfare and will soon issue it in order to support people heavily hurt by the pandemic, including labourers, poor people and those living under disadvantaged circumstances, he said.

Sectors and localities have been urged to pay more attention to the poor and ensure people’s basic living demands such as electricity, water, food and medicine.

He also ordered strict punishments for those who break the rules on COVID-19 prevention and those who sell fake or low quality goods during the pandemic.

He asked the National Steering Committee on COVID-19 Prevention and Control to prepare scenarios for wide virus transmission and identify virus carriers at the early stages for active response.

Social distancing makes society slower but COVID-19 responders must speed up their work with more drastic measures, he said.

He asked the committee to make plans to build temporary hospitals and use hotels and schools for quarantine centres in case of necessity.

According to the National Steering Committee on COVID-19 Prevention and Control, as of 6pm on April 2, the committee reviewed the list of nearly 44,500 people connected to Bạch Mai Hospital, one of the country’s COVID-19 clusters.

They include 4,593 inpatients, 1,299 outpatients, 30,617 people who had health check-ups at the hospital, more than 7,100 patients’ relatives or caregivers, and 145 people working for Trường Sinh Company.

Those people have been self quarantined or put in concentrated quarantine areas.

At the meeting, the committee also reported there are 5,245 ventilators nationwide. More than 1,300 of them can be used if the pandemic in Việt Nam reaches level 3 or 4. — VNS