Promoting the application of information technology in the COVID-19 prevention and control

– From 2020 until now, the situation of COVID-19 epidemic has been complicated. In order to effectively carry out epidemic prevention and control work, for nearly 2 years, all levels, sectors and people have actively applied digital technology in statistics, reporting, disease control and people’s health status control.

Mr. Nguyen Khac Lich, Director of the Department of Information and Communications said that following the direction of the leaders and documents of the Provincial People’s Committee, for nearly two years, the Department of Information and Communications has advised the Provincial People’s Committee to bring digital technology applications to support the COVID-19 prevention and control. Thereby, it has contributed to providing fast, accurate information; Party committees and authorities have had prompt leadership and direction, along with that people and businesses also have access to official information, flexibly adapt to the evolution of the epidemic.

Border guard forces are trained to monitor information about COVID-19 prevention and control on the digital border gate platform

Specifically, over the past time, Lang Son has developed two COVID-19 prevention and control applications including the epidemiological map of Covidmaps, digital border gate (declaration for drivers transporting import and export goods). Also, Lang Son has deployed three applications: Bluezone, NCOVI, VHD, so far known as PC-COVID software (national COVID-19 epidemic prevention and control application), vaccination management platform, electronic health book. Along with that, Lang Son has deployed many applications that support text-to-speech conversion; support 100% of district health centers to carry out the remote medical consultation system (Telehealth-Viettel); the concentrated quarantine area management system and so on.

Among the deployed software, the digital border gate platform system has been used relatively effectively in border areas with many border gates like Lang Son. Instead of having to declare on paper as before, using this platform, drivers carrying import and export goods through 16 quarantine checkpoints in the province, Huu Nghi International Border Gate and Tan Thanh Border Gate only need to declare via smartphone. The platform also allows monitoring the inspection and epidemic prevention process for vehicles and goods at the warehouse. Although it has only been in operation since August 2021, up to now, more than 90,000 turns of people and import and export vehicles have been checked and controlled through this platform, creating favorable conditions for drivers and businesses transporting goods to border gates in the province.

In order to quickly and timely convey information to people in the province on epidemic prevention and control, AI technology to convert text into broadcast voice is also deployed in the radio system. With this application, the text-to-speech system will quickly and promptly deliver information on COVID-19 prevention and control on the commune-level radio system. Applying this technology, from 2020 to now, the province has converted 200,000 text-to-speech articles to broadcast at the grassroots.

Representatives of businesses in the province study documents guiding medical declaration on the digital border gate platform

Other digital applications such as the remote medical consultation system, surveillance cameras in quarantine areas, PC-COVID (the national COVID-19 prevention and control application) also have a positive effect in limiting people’s movement, controlling quarantined people, tracing the destination of infected people, actively contributing to disease prevention and control in the area. Currently, the province has 228,000 smartphones with the PC-COVID application installed (accounting for more than 43% of the province’s population); information of 851,000 injections is updated to the national vaccination platform; there are over 282,000 times of using Covidmaps app and so forth.

Mr. Nguyen Duy Manh, Dinh Lap township, Dinh Lap district said that during the time when the epidemic in the district has developed complicatedly like now, he regularly accesses the Covidmaps digital map to monitor the epidemic situation. Thereby, he knows locations with complicated developments so that he actively avoids these locations, limiting contact and improving the effectiveness of epidemic prevention.

Digital technology platforms are applied in practice, making a positive contribution to epidemic prevention and control in the province. According to Report No. 430/BC-UBND of the Provincial People’s Committee dated October 13, 2021 on preliminarily summarizing the prevention and control of the 4^th wave of COVID-19 epidemic, Lang Son is in the group of ten provinces and cities with the best results of technology application to prevent and combat COVID-19. Promoting the achieved results, in the coming time, the Department of Information and Communications will continue to research and advise the Provincial People’s Committee to direct the application of more digital platforms to serve the epidemic prevention and control in the province more effectively.