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“The variety of infections is falling, however this isn’t sufficient to declare the pandemic completed,” Tran Dac Phu, senior advisor of the Public Well being Emergency Operations Heart, stated Thursday.
Citing present Vietnamese legal guidelines and insurance policies, which say that one of many circumstances to declare an infectious illness epidemic to be over is the dearth of any new an infection for 28 days, Phu stated.
Vietnam was nonetheless recording new Covid-19 infections on daily basis, and there was no assure that no new an infection would pop up sooner or later.
Previously seven days, the each day variety of new Covid-19 infections has hovered round 9,000 on common, a 16 % discount from the earlier seven-day common. The variety of recorded each day deaths additionally fell to the bottom in 10 months.
Echoing Phu, Do Van Dung, head of the general public well being division of the HCMC College of Medication and Pharmacy, stated immunity supplied by vaccines and infections would wane over time, that means the virus wouldn’t have gone away fully. The variety of infections can all the time rise sooner or later, so the pandemic can’t be declared over proper now, he stated.”
In my view, declaring the Covid-19 pandemic over now would ship no profit,” he added.
A serious problem is the truth that lots of the Covid-19 vaccines and medicines in use have solely been authorized for emergency use. Within the U.S., Covid-19 vaccines and medicines are authorized for emergency use below the EUA license by the FDA. That license would expire as soon as the emergency state is said over, successfully rendering void earlier approvals of medicine and vaccines for emergency use.
To this point, solely the Pfizer vaccine has been totally authorized within the U.S.
It is because of this that a number of nations have determined to increase their very own emergency standing because of Covid-19. Equally, for Vietnam, the emergency standing would enable the federal government and well being authorities better flexibility in deploying measures to guard public well being.
An professional who wished to stay nameless stated present Covid-19 medication and vaccines have been authorized by the Ministry of Well being for emergencies. Their licenses wouldn’t be revoked even when the federal government declared the pandemic over. Nonetheless, companies would nonetheless have to supply extra paperwork to show their merchandise’ security and effectiveness so as to acquire full approval.
Dung stated Vietnam has by no means declared an emergency state because of Covid-19, however did embrace the illness among the many record of particularly harmful infectious ailments, which allowed authorities to approve using medication even after they’d not been totally researched. Nonetheless, such an exception shouldn’t be continued both when the pandemic is said to be over or Covid-19 is faraway from the record of particularly harmful infectious ailments as it might set a “destructive precedent”, permitting future ailments to turn out to be related exceptions, he added.
Moreover, declaring the pandemic to be over might trigger individuals to turn out to be much less vigilant about illness prevention, Dung added.
“Even the U.S. has not dared to finish its emergency state,” Dung stated, citing an article from the New England Journal of Medication. Vietnam ought to keep its present standing even whereas enjoyable Covid-19 restrictions so life can return to regular, he added.
Deputy Well being Minister Nguyen Truong Son stated final Tuesday that the federal government might be liable for declaring the pandemic over, however didn’t elaborate. Phu stated Vietnam ought to maintain monitoring the worldwide Covid-19 scenario and step up examine of coronavirus variants.
Dung stated Vietnam wants to complete vaccinating its little one inhabitants earlier than deciding what to do subsequent.
In the meantime, Physician Tran Si Tuan stated the well being ministry ought to take away Covid-19 from the record of particularly harmful infectious ailments as a substitute of declaring the pandemic over. With excessive vaccine protection and low numbers of infections and deaths, hospitals can now deal with Covid-19 like some other illness, he added.
Vietnam can proceed taking sure primary prevention measures, for instance sporting masks and avoiding giant crowds in enclosed areas, he added.
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