National Assembly Chairman Vuong Dinh Hue chaired the meeting, and Vice Chairman Nguyen Khac Dinh chaired the meeting.

Mobilized 230,000 billion VND for Covid-19 prevention and control

According to the report of the Monitoring Team, by December 31, 2022, the total amount of money mobilized to directly serve the work of epidemic prevention and control and implementation of social security policies was about 230 trillion VND, of which the State budget was more than 186.4 trillion VND and from sponsorship and aid was about 43.6 trillion VND. More than 11.6 trillion VND was mobilized into the Covid-19 Vaccine Fund. About 259.3 million doses of Covid-19 vaccine were received, of which nearly 150 million doses were aid from foreign governments, worth about 24 trillion VND.

Millions of volunteers, especially medical staff, officers and soldiers of the armed forces, have directly participated in the frontline of the fight against the epidemic. People from all walks of life, the business community, governments of various countries and international organizations have directly participated in the prevention and fight against the epidemic and contributed their efforts, money, goods and many other contributions in many different forms, including many contributions and support that cannot be quantified in money.

The management, use, payment and settlement of resources for epidemic prevention and control have basically been implemented in accordance with issued policies and guidelines. Aid and sponsorship goods have been promptly allocated to localities and units to serve the prevention and control of Covid-19.

View of the meeting. Photo: QUANG PHUC

As of December 31, 2022, the budget for Covid-19 prevention and control has been used as follows: Supporting people, workers, employers, and business households affected by the Covid-19 pandemic is more than VND 87,000 billion; implementing policies and regimes for frontline forces and other forces participating in the fight against the pandemic (Army, Police, health...) is VND 4,487 billion; purchasing Covid-19 vaccines is VND 15,134 billion; supporting research and testing of Covid-19 vaccines is VND 4.6 billion; purchasing test kits is VND 2,593 billion; purchasing medical equipment, supplies, drugs, and biological products is VND 5,291 billion; paying for examination, emergency care, and treatment of Covid-19 patients is VND 719 billion; screening, admission, and medical isolation is VND 89 billion; Support for new construction, repair, and upgrading of Covid-19 treatment facilities, quarantine facilities, and field hospitals is 403 billion VND; research and application of information technology to prevent and combat the Covid-19 epidemic, the Wave and Computer Program for Children, and online teaching is 96 billion VND; other expenses are about 2,600 billion VND.

The army actively participates in the prevention and control of Covid-19 epidemic

Speaking at the meeting, National Assembly deputies highly appreciated the contributions and sacrifices of the frontline team against the epidemic, especially the team of doctors, medical staff, the Army and armed forces.

National Assembly deputies said that the Army is one of the core forces participating in the prevention and control of the Covid-19 epidemic.

From the beginning, the Central Military Commission and the Ministry of National Defense have resolutely directed agencies and units to promptly mobilize forces to participate in the work of preventing and fighting the Covid-19 epidemic. Specifically, more than 192,000 officers and soldiers with professional qualifications meeting the requirements of practical epidemic prevention and control have been mobilized to support localities in effectively implementing epidemic prevention and control solutions, contributing to effective control of the epidemic. The Army has participated in epidemic prevention and control with many different tasks, such as medical examination and treatment, vaccination, quarantine of citizens entering the country, and actively participating in ensuring social security. There are tasks that the army has never done before, but they have organized and completed well, very well, such as burial, transportation of corpses, ashes of Covid-19 victims...

The military, directly the Border Guard, has also coordinated with local authorities and closely coordinated with relevant functional forces to control the land and sea borders well, thoroughly prevent illegal entry and exit, prevent diseases from entering through the border and bad elements from taking advantage to organize sabotage activities, firmly protect the national border sovereignty, regularly maintain about 20,000 teams and posts at border gates, trails, and openings with about 13,000 Border Guard officers and soldiers directly participating.

Delegates pointed out many lessons that need to be learned in the work of disease prevention and control as well as in future disaster response. Specifically, there needs to be synchronization and unity in mobilizing and dispatching human resources, including private forces, assigning the right tasks to the right people, the right jobs so that each individual participating in disease prevention and control can promote their capacity and participate in disease prevention and control most effectively. The National Assembly is discussing and the draft Law on Civil Defense will be passed at this session with many regulations related to mobilizing, managing and using resources for civil defense, in which the regulation on the establishment of the Civil Defense Fund is necessary to be proactive in resources, ready to respond when disasters and incidents occur.

Fair judgment needed after the pandemic

In addition to praising the positive results, great contributions and sacrifices of the team of cadres, medical staff, the Army, armed forces and other cadres on the front line against the epidemic as well as the silent contributions of the team of cadres, workers on the back line, the people, businessmen, enterprises and international friends, the delegates also paid great attention to the handling of violations and our attitude towards individuals, agencies and organizations involved in the work of mobilizing, managing and using resources to prevent and fight the Covid-19 epidemic.

The delegates strongly condemned those who took advantage of their own interests while the entire nation was struggling to fight the pandemic, doing things that were "both unreasonable and illegal"; and requested that these individuals be severely punished. The National Assembly should issue a mechanism for competent authorities to apply the law with legal judgments, which are both reasonable and reasonable; to stop the spread of the disease of fear of responsibility, self-isolation, self-preservation, shirking responsibility, and avoiding responsibility from the health sector to other sectors after the pandemic...

Delegates also proposed to have a form of honoring and rewarding both the frontline staff and the epidemic prevention staff, and staff indirectly participating in the epidemic prevention and control work; thoroughly implementing support and reward policies for individuals, agencies and organizations participating in the Covid-19 epidemic prevention and control work; implementing well the support policy for the staff of grassroots health care, preventive medicine staff and having appropriate support policies for the staff working at the grassroots health care, preventive medicine...

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