The Department of Information and Communications of Ho Chi Minh City has just sent a report summarizing analysis, assessment, forecast and solutions for the Covid-19 epidemic in the city to the HCM City People's Committee.

This report summarizes the results of two research groups on the epidemic situation in the city.

The Fulbright University's team includes Dr. Vu Thanh Tu Anh, Director of the Fulbright School of Public Policy and Management as the leader; Dr. Nguyen Thu Anh, Director of Woolcock Institute of Medical Research in Vietnam, senior lecturer at the University of Sydney Australia and colleagues.

This team used the daily number of cases; basic infection coefficient-R0; parameters of interventions (social distancing from the Google Mobility report, traceability, contagion in quarantine sites from previous outbreak analysis).

This group predicts that from the beginning of August, Ho Chi Minh City will only have a few infection cases per day and the epidemic will end in late August 2021.

The Tech4Covid research team includes Dr. Dinh Ba Tien, Head of the Faculty of Information Technology, University of Natural Sciences as the team leader; Assoc. Prof. Dr. Le Dinh Duy, Head of Postgraduate Training and Science and Technology Faculty, University of Information Technology and associates. In particular, Dr. Quoc Tran (Principal Data Scientist, Walmart Labs, US) has a lot of experience in building a highly accurate forecasting model for the ongoing Covid-19 epidemic in the US.

This group forecasts that locally-transmitted cases tend to peak and will start to decrease slightly in July 2021. The epidemic will be under control by the end of August if Directive 10 is well followed. The rapid deployment of Covid-19 testing on a large scale will help quickly control infection cases in the community and shorten the time to apply Directive 10.

According to the HCMC Department of Information and Communications, the research results of the two groups are very similar and show that the application of Directive 10 has been effective in preventing disease outbreaks in HCM City.

Specifically, the simulation results based on data up to June 27, 2021 showed that the epidemic tended to nearly reach the peak at the end of June and tended to decrease slightly in early July 2021. The compliance with Directive 10 will make full epidemic control possible in August 2021.

The rapid application of technology (wide-scale rapid testing, vaccination, electronic medical declaration,...) in epidemic prevention and control can shorten the time applying Directive 10 in the city.

From these studies and forecasts, the Department of Information and Communications proposed that the Ho Chi Minh City People's Committee, the municipal Steering Committee for Covid-19 Prevention and Control consider the recommendations of the two research groups, as these are recommendations based on scientific grounds.

According to these studies, District 1, District 4, District 12 are suggested as those of very high risk; District 7, District 10, District 11, and the former Thu Duc District of high risk.

Ho Van

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