Nguyen Manh Hung, Minister of Information and Communications announced technology-driven measure being taken for the prevention and the fight against COVID-19. He confirmed that they have successfully developed software to detect people who cross the border without appropriate reporting. The announcement came in a meeting on COVID-19 prevention that was presided over by Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc presided on the sidelines of the XIII Party Congress.
Minister Hung explained that in the very short time immediately after the infection appeared in the community, the Ministry of Information and Communications requested that the Central Post Office deploy telecommunications infrastructure at hotels and other such places. This allowed leaders of Quang Ninh and Hai Duong provinces who are in Hanoi to attend meetings and conduct have online briefings.
In addition, IT applications have been deployed are being used round the clock for rapid tracing. One such app is the Bluezone mobile application. The app, developed by the country’s leading cybersecurity firm BKAV, alerts a user if they have come in close contact with people who tested positive, minimising the spread of the virus in the community. When the epidemic broke out again in Vietnam, half a million people reported through Bluezone. According to the Minister, because the pandemic is prolonged and unpredictable, Bluezone users should be maintained at about 25-30 million users.
The Department of Informatics, Ministry of Information and Communications said that as soon as the epidemic returned, the Bluezone application recorded a sharp increase in downloads. In the three days from January 28 to January 30, the number of downloads increased by 1 million, reaching 26 million downloads. According to the minister, 8 million people regularly turn on the Bluezone has helped trace hundreds of cases.
State agencies in the area require all cadres, civil servants, public employees and specialists to have Bluezone installed if they have smartphones. The agency appoints a controller, records the entrance and exit activities of the headquarters, requires everyone at work to install and run the application
The minister proposed that in some high-risk localities, the local authorities should have regulations that force people to use Bluezone to be effective in preventing epidemics without much effort. Without Bluezone, the localisation of epidemic significantly more effort.
Minister Nguyen Manh Hung said that the Ministry of Information and Communications has directed the development of software to detect border crossers without reporting. “Until this moment, the software runs quite effectively, we will quickly put it into official use to support the military. When crossing the border, the person on the entry will turn on the phone, or use a new sim, or on the old one, and we can be traced via software. We evaluate the software can be very effective.
In terms of press information on the internet, the percentage of readers and the rate of news related to translation warnings has increased significantly, previously only 5%, but as of the end of January 2021, it has increased to about 18%. The Minister said that the rate of news related to COVID-19 was at about 20%, just enough for all people to be alert but not be confused.
Image credit: https://mic.gov.vn/