No new case of COVID-19 was detected as of 6am on April 19, making it three full days the country has gone without any new infection of the coronavirus, according to the national steering committee for COVID-19 prevention and control.

As of April 18, up to 201 out of 268 COVID-19 patients, or three quarters, across the country have fully recovered, reported the Treatment Subcommittee under the National Steering Committee for COVID-19 Prevention and Control.

Three more people, including a man from the UK and a married couple from Brazil, were given the all-clear on April 18 after treatment at hospitals in Ho Chi Minh City.

One of them is a 34-year-old British man who after initially testing positive had a number of subsequent tests during treatment at the Can Gio COVID-19 Treatment Hospital which all came back negative.

The couple from Brazil, a 45-year-old woman and her 49-year-old husband, had been treated at the Cu Chi COVID-19 Treatment Hospital in HCM City.

All three patients will have to undergo quarantine for the next 14 days and their health will be monitored.

Among 67 patients currently in hospital with the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, 14 have recorded one negative test, and five have twice tested negative, according to the subcommittee.

There are 62,998 people currently in quarantine nationwide. Among these, 279 people are quarantined at hospitals, 11,338 others are kept at concentrated quarantine sites and 51,381 are self-quarantined at home.

Vietnamese people returning from Italy test negative for COVID-19

All 55 Vietnamese citizens returning from Italy on a specially arranged flight that landed on Saturday morning, have tested negative for COVID-19.

Three Italians also on the flight, which touched down at Đà Nẵng International Airport, have also been told they are not carrying the virus.

Director of the city’s Centre for Disease Control (CDC), Dr Tôn Thất Thạnh said sample test results released in the evening were all negative. More tests will be carried out in the coming days.

He said the Vietnamese citizens are isolated at the city’s Military Training School in Hoà Vang District, 20km west of the city centre, for health checks and monitoring for two weeks.

The three Italians are quarantined at a hotel in the city’s downtown Hải Châu District.

The Vietnam Airlines (VNA) flight was arranged between the Vietnamese government and the Italian Embassy in Viet Nam and the Vietnamese Embassy in Italy.

It took a number of Italian citizens home on Friday, then returned the following day bringing back Vietnamese residents.

Total recovered COVID-19 patients rise to 201

The Steering Committee for COVID-19 Prevention and Control has reported that three more patients have been cleared of the virus, raising the total recovered tally to 201.

They include a man from the UK and a married couple from Brazil, were given the all-clear after treatment at hospitals in Ho Chi Minh City.

All three patients will have to undergo quarantine for the next 14 days and their health will be monitored.

As of April 18 afternoon, Vietnam reported no new cases of COVID-19 over the past two days. The country’s number of confirmed patients with SARS-CoV-2 stands at 268 and no fatalities has been reported./.

Medical supplies presented to Lao security departments

The Public Security Department of central Thua Thien-Hue province presents rice to the Security Departments of the Lao provinces of Salavan and Sekong (Source: cand.com.vn)

The Public Security Department of central Thua Thien-Hue province on April 18 presented medical supplies and necessities to the Security Departments of the Lao provinces of Salavan and Sekong to support them in the COVID-19 fight.

The gifts include 10,000 face masks, 50 sets of protective clothing, 1,000 pairs of medical gloves, disinfection machines, two tonnes of rice and 200 boxes of instant noodle, with a combined value of 200 million VND (8,570 USD).

On this occasion, agencies and organisations in the central province also granted over 1,300 bottles of hand santinizer, 1,000 face masks, 100 boxes of instant noodle, among others to the Security Departments of Laos.

The gifts are expected to help Lao officers, soldiers and people in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic and tighten relations between the Thua Thien-Hue Public Security Department and the Security Departments of Salavan and Sekong.

Thua Thien-Hue shares a 84-kilometre border line with the two Lao provinces.

COVID-19 fight in Thailand, Malaysia sees improvements

Thailand on April 18 confirmed 33 more COVID-19 infection cases, raising the total in the country to 2,733.

Apart from 47 fatalities, 1,787 have been discharged from hospitals.

The Health Ministry said the country’s COVID-19 death rate is 1.7 percent, or four times lower than the world’s average while the recovery rate reaches 62.5 percent.

The situation is improving in the country with new cases tend to decrease due to the flight limit order.

The same day, Malaysia announced additional 54 infections, the lowest since the government imposed the social distancing order a day earlier.

Meanwhile in Singapore, 942 more cases were reported in the past 24 hours, a record in the Southeast Asian nation, bringing the total to 5,992.

In Indonesia, 325 new infections pushed the total to 6,248, including 535 deaths. It surpassed the Philippines in terms of infections and deaths in the region.

Also on April 18, the Philippines confirmed 209 new infection cases and ten deaths, bringing the total to 6,087 and 397, respectively.

German newswire lauds Vietnam’s economic policy amid COVID-19

The Deutsche Welle (DW) newswire on April 17 ran a story praising Vietnam’s successes in fighting COVID-19 with all of its power while the global economy is facing depression due to the pandemic.

The article quoted a report by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) as saying that the world economic growth is forecast to drop by 3 percent this year. For the first time in 60 years, the Asian economy has been predicted to not expand. Meanwhile, the Chinese Government has announced that its economy downsized 6.8 percent in the first quarter.

However, Vietnam has so far done a fairly good job in economic term. Though the figure in the first quarter is lower than the estimate, the growth still hit 3.82 percent, it said.

Talking with DW, Carl Thayer from Australia’s University of New South Wales, said it was a noteworthy achievement.

According to the article, Vietnam launched a strategy to contain SARS-CoV-2 from early. Therefore, data from the Johns Hopkins University showed that the total number of infection cases has only reached 268 to date.

Despite social distancing measures, electronics and medicine-pharmaceuticals sectors still grew by 14 percent and 44 percent, respectively, in the first quarter, said the German Chamber of Commerce and Industry (AHK) in Vietnam, adding that the Vietnamese Government is adopting different measures to prevent economic slowdown.

It said like other countries, Vietnam has also faced difficulties, especially in services, tourism and aviation. The tourism sector lost 3-4 billion USD in the first quarter.

Thayer also added that Vietnam could succeed in maintaining the balance between protecting people’s health and economic benefits in the short term.