A student volunteer sprays a disinfectant in an alley in HCM City’s Tân Bình District on June 22. VNS Photo Gia Lộc

HCM CITY — Everyone entering commercial establishments, work sites and other public sites in HCM City are required to fill ‘Hệ thống khai báo y tế điện tử’ (electronic health declaration system) starting on Thursday.

According to the city People’s Committee, work sites include offices, industrial parks, export processing zones, hi-tech parks, and factories.

Public sites include health facilities, apartment towers, educational establishments, train and bus stations, supermarkets, traditional markets, commercial centres, wholesale markets, and stores selling essential goods and services.

It has instructed Thủ Đức city and districts to co-operate with the Department of Health and other relevant agencies to monitor implementation. 

The Department of Information and Communications has been instructed to guide other agencies and local authorities in the use of the electronic health declaration system and ensure its security.

It has stepped up communication about the online health declaration and encourage the public to instal it on their phones.   

The software is being used at all health facilities in the city to enable suspected cases be more rapidly traced than through the use of paper forms.

It has already helped quickly trace many COVID patients and suspected cases to prevent the spread of the infection.       

On June 21 the Department of Information and Communications put up a new version of a digital map at https://bando.tphcm.gov.vn to replace the existing one.

Using the map, users can find optimal travel routes to avoid COVID-hit areas and limit going to high-risk transmission ones.

Increasing beds

Because of the complex development of the pandemic in the city, the number of COVID cases in the city topped 2,100 by Thursday afternoon.

The Department of Health has increased the number of beds available for treatment from 3,500 to 5,000.   

There are nine hospitals with 3,500 beds, and it has designated Bình Chánh Hospital with 500 and Thủ Đức Regional General Hospital with 1,000 to treating COVID patients.    

The health staff at the Hospital for Tropical Diseases’ department for contagious diseases and Nguyễn Tri Phương’s resuscitation and emergency department have been assigned to assist them.

Bình Chánh Hospital has stopped admitting other patients while the Thủ Đức Regional General Hospital has earmarked a separate facility for treating COVID.   

Vice chairman of the city People’s Committee, Dương Anh Đức, earlier approved converting Phạm Ngọc Thạch Hospital into a dedicated COVID facility.

Trưng Vương Hospital is also treating COVID patients.

The city has set up 10 more quarantine sites at hotels in the districts of 1, 3 and Tân Bình and Thủ Đức city.

Health officials are taking large numbers of samples from the community in the districts of Bình Tân, Tân Bình, Tân Phú, Hóc Môn, 8, and several others for screening. VNS