Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh inspects disease prevention at the dormitory of HCM City National University

The COVID-19 pandemic has become a nightmare for people all over the world in the past year. By July 15^th, 2021, the world had reported more than 188 million COVID-19 cases and more than 4 million deaths. Vietnam has successfully contained several waves of the pandemic. But reactionary organizations like Việt Tân and another organization that calls itself “Vietnam’s provisional national government”, as well as the Voice of America (VOA), Radio Free Asia (RFA), New Horizon Media and many forces hostile to Vietnam have recently published stories distorting and attempting to sabotage Vietnam’s fight against COVID-19.

As soon as the first cases of COVID-19 were detected in Vietnam in early 2020, the Vietnamese government adopted the motto “All for people’s health” to promote a strong determination to protect people’s health and lives. Pursuing this motto throughout the fight against COVID-19, the Vietnamese government set up a National Steering Committee for COVID-19 Prevention and Control and mobilized the public to fight the disease as if fighting an enemy. In response to the pandemic, the Party and the government implemented measures to protect public health and prevent the spread of the virus even if some economic benefits could be sacrificed. Vietnam has adopted creative strategies from the central to the grassroots level including zoning, tracing, tightening control of quarantine and lockdown areas, isolating infected individuals and their contacts, researching, and purchasing vaccines, and vaccinating people nationwide.

Since the pandemic worsened in late April, the government has worked closely with pandemic-hit localities. Once again, the strength of solidarity and a sense of responsibility have been upheld. As a result, the epidemic in Bac Ninh, Bac Giang, and several other cities and provinces has been contained.

In HCM City, where the pandemic has been worsening rapidly, local authorities have mobilized all possible resources to stop the disease. In addition to Party and State guidelines, local administraters, sectors, organizations, businesses and the public have implemented other creative measures to encourage and help frontline workers and disadvantaged people fight the epidemic. Solidarity, consensus, and determination on the part of the political system and the public is gradually containing the epidemic and enabling local people to resume their normal lives.

Vietnam has been creative in mobilizing resources to obtain COVID-19 vaccines. The Party Politburo has stressed the importance of accelerating the purchase of vaccines, vaccinating frontline healthcare workers and people in high-risk areas, and workers in industrial parks; researching the vaccination of children, and beginning a vaccination program to achieve herd immunity. This reflects the strong political determination of the Vietnamese Party, State, and government to protect the public.

Vietnam’s fight against COVID-19 over the past year has demonstrated that the keys to winning the fight are the leadership of the Party, the management of Vietnam’s central and local governments, and solidarity of the Vietnamese people. This solidarity has been demonstrated by contributions to the national vaccine fund. Soon after it was launched, the fund had already received millions of dollars in donations from organizations, businesses and individuals inside and outside Vietnam.