The moves form part of a draft plan to fight COVID-19 beyond September 15 submitted to the municipal People’s Committee by the local Department of Health.

Based on the city’s data on COVID-19 caseloads, hospitalization and fatality, as well as intervention solutions, the southern economic hub is likely to put the coronavirus situation under control in accordance with the Minister of Health’s standards after mid-September, the Department of Health said in the proposal.

Its core strategy is to inoculate all adults aged above 18 with two jabs of COVID-19 vaccines and start vaccinating at-risk children, for example, those with underlying illness and obesity, if vaccines are available.

Ho Chi Minh City will also step by step relax social distancing rules based on results of risk assessment, epidemiological surveillance data and the healthcare system’s capacity, in order to restore production, supply of essential services and circulation of goods.

Local authorities intend to classify business sectors and units based on their level of COVID-19 exposure risk and allow production and economic activities, and social interactions to gradually resume accordingly.

The Department of Health will make sure all home-quarantined COVID-19 patients will be provided with medical monitoring by grassroots health units and receive COVID-19 medicine packages. It plans to promptly discover and provide first aid to these patients when their conditions turn worse; and prevent unexpected COVID-19 deaths at home.

Additionally, it will adopt exclusive mechanism and solutions to mobilise all possible community-based resources to care for self-quarantined patients, while restoring the normal operation of the local health system to serve patients with non-COVID-19 and COVID-19 diseases.

The department is calling recovered COVID-19 patients to assist the city’s COVID-19 response. As of September 8, a total of 1,543 patients have reportedly registered to join.