Hanoi (VNA) – Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc agreedon the increase of testing capacity with simple procedures, during a cabinetmeeting on COVID-19 prevention and control held on August 21.

He also spoke highly of concerted, timely and stringentefforts in containing the spread of the pandemic, particularly the establishmentof the Ministry of Health’s special force in the central city of Da Nang, the country’smajor hotspot, as hundreds of medical workers have been sent to the centralregion.

The PM called for dramatic solutions to speed up testing, andasked all people to install the Bluezone contact tracing app on theirsmartphones.

He also ordered all sectors, especially the Health Ministry,to stay vigilant and spare no efforts to stop the spread of new communitytransmissions. At the same time, the health sector must enhance virtualtraining for medical workers nationwide to fight the pandemic.

In addition, he reiterated the significance of the closecontrol of entry-exit at border regions and punishment for violators.

The Ministry of Education and Training has been tasked withworking with localities on the organisation of the national high schoolgraduation examination in Quang Nam, Da Nang and elsewhere, as well as the startof the new academic year in a safe and suitable manner.

The Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs has beenasked to amend policies supporting laid off workers and submit to theGovernment for consideration.

At the meeting, Acting Health Minister Nguyen Thanh Longsaid that the spread of COVID-19 in central Da Nang city and Quang Nam provincehas been gradually contained, as the number of new infections in the twohotspots has been on the decline. Meanwhile, northern Hai Duong province had nonew cases to report in the past three days./.