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Vietnam orders covid tests for millions in Ho Chi Minh City

Vietnams Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh ordered covid-19 tests for all of Ho Chi Minh City after the government dispatched the military to dispense food in the nations commercial hub amid new drastic measures to contain a worsening outbreak.

Uncertainty swept across the city of almost 10 million through the weekend, triggered by conflicting information from authorities about food shopping restrictions. Local media depicted crowds of residents descending on food markets and standing in lines for hours. The curbs on shopping are set to be in place starting Monday until Sept. 6.

Officials estimate the city needs to provide 11,000 tons of goods to residents daily and the government is capable of doing that, an unnamed official from the city’s trade department was cited as saying by Tuoi Tre. The military will work with volunteers, veterans and some unions to deliver food to households, Vo Minh Luong, deputy minister of national defense, said in a meeting on Friday with city officials. His comments were made available on a government website, which didn’t give details on the scale of the distribution in the city.

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The Southeast Asian country is battling its worst coronavirus wave with a record 11,299 domestic new virus cases reported Saturday. Ho Chi Minh City is the nation’s epicenter with more than 171,000 reported domestic patients out of the country’s 332,626 local cases since April 27, the start of latest national outbreak. The city has recorded 80% of the country’s covid-19 deaths.

Authorities are increasingly concerned that months of tough anti-virus measures have yet to contain the spread of covid-19, and aim to further reduce movements by Ho Chi Minh City residents. They have already been restricted from leaving home and can do so for only essential reasons, such as getting food, seeking medical treatment or going to work-sites approved by the government.

The government aims to contain the virus to pockets in Ho Chi Minh City by Sept. 15, according to its website.

Less than 2% of the nation of 98 million people have been fully vaccinated as of Aug. 19, according to a statement posted on the website of the health ministry’s publication Suc Khoe Doi Song.

Stricter movement restrictions are also being ordered in neighboring provinces including Dong Nai and Binh Duong, according to a statement on the government’s website. That region is dotted with industrial parks – home to suppliers of global brands.

Hundreds of police officers from different parts of the country are being sent to Ho Chi Minh City and Binh Duong province to assist with enforcement of the restrictions, according to the government statement. Likewise, thousands of doctors and other medical professionals have been arriving in the southern region to assist with the growing number of patients.

The army will oversee the enforcement of stay-at-home orders that were extended through Sept. 15 in Ho Chi Minh City and assist the city to ensure its food supply for the next 15 days, according to the government posting. Local officials must detail the number of stores in their areas and calculate the needs of households, the notice said.

Published : August 23, 2021

By : Syndication Washington Post, Bloomberg · Nguyen Xuan Quynh

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What corporate america can learn from the Navys vaccine campaign

The corporate world may want to take a page out of the U.S. Navys manual when it comes to boosting workforce Covid-19 vaccination rates.

The Navy is the pride of the U.S. military when it comes to inoculation: 76% of active duty members are fully vaccinated, the highest rate of the main four branches, according to data provided by each. And at a rate of 56%, the broader U.S. population has a ways to catch up.

The Navy has taken a more-stick-than-carrot approach with its members, eschewing the free gift cards or cash bonuses that some private employers are offering as incentives and instead making life more difficult for sailors who haven’t gotten their shots. It had been imposing long quarantines away from family and restricting port calls for unvaccinated sailors even before the Defense Department’s Sept. 15 inoculation mandate was announced.

“A lot of sailors join the Navy because they want to see the world,” said Cmdr. Wade Smith of the USS Sioux City. “I told the crew, if you get to 100% vaccinated, you’ll have that option.”

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The Navy’s experience could be a useful roadmap for U.S. employers that are facing a delicate balancing act as they seek to ensure a safe return to office while not alienating certain workers by forcing them to get a jab. Some employers have recently imposed vaccine mandates as the delta variant spreads, but others like Amazon can’t enact such rules in the current labor market without the risk of losing employees.

Companies don’t have the same level of control over employees as officers do sailors on a ship, but they can create inconveniences for their workers’ daily lives and limit activities – like in-person trainings and meetings – that could give employees a leg up.

“What can companies learn from this? Incentives work,” said Mark Cancian, senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and a retired Marine Corps colonel. “Putting out another pamphlet about how vaccination is safe and you should do it is not going to help.”

Covid outbreaks at big companies like Amazon – which saw 20,000 of its U.S. workers contract the virus over six months last year – have proven public relations disasters. And the Navy hasn’t been immune, either. Nearly 1,300 sailors were infected on the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt in March 2020, forcing the crew to evacuate to Guam and sidelining the ship for more than a month.

Officers have clamored to avoid the same fate since the Defense Department began its vaccine rollout in mid-December. If sailors get sick while at sea, operations could be crippled for weeks, an especially costly problem for the Navy, which is the most expensive of the military’s branches to operate.

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For commanding officers, “not being effective is not an option,” said Katherine Kuzminski, director of the Military, Veterans, and Society Program at the Center for a New American Security.

In March, Smith’s crew on the USS Sioux City in Mayport, Florida, became the first in the Navy to reach 100% vaccination. Ten ships have rates of 95% or more.

“We tried to tell them all the time about the mission of the ship,” he said about convincing crew members to get the shot. “‘We’re about to deploy, and I only have 70 sailors. I need every one of you.'”

Smith said he first called his crew to the flight deck to emphasize the importance of the Covid vaccines, and the ship’s hospital corpsman then set up a table in the mess deck for 30 minutes every day to answer questions from individual sailors. Capt. John Gay, public affairs officer at the Navy Bureau of Medicine and Surgery, said officers across the country engaged each sailor personally about getting vaccinated.

“We have a unique environment that the other services don’t have, working in these close quarters,” he said. “So there’s been a lot of education, and that face-to-face leadership has really helped.”

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The newly imposed vaccine mandate requires that all military personnel be vaccinated by mid-September, and those who don’t comply could face punishments as extreme as removal from service. But before the shots became mandatory, the rollback of restrictions for vaccinated sailors in February convinced many to get the jab. Meanwhile, unvaccinated service members faced restrictions that impacted their personal and professional lives. Even now, those without a shot have to quarantine on the ship for at least two weeks before deployment, which means they’re sequestered in close quarters, away from family, before what will likely be a months-long absence at sea.

When docking at a foreign port, which can happen several times per tour, unvaccinated sailors may also be forced to stay on the ship while their vaccinated counterparts enjoy their time off in a new city.

Individual bases have the authority to impose additional rules, too. Mark Julian Martinez, a junior enlisted sailor on the USS Donald Cook, said unvaccinated sailors on the base in Rota, Spain, were prohibited from going anywhere outside the base besides their homes. It was “just another added incentive for people to get the vaccine,” he said.

In the corporate world, some companies have found success in encouraging vaccines by making life inconvenient for those without. Forcing masks and routine testing could be a hassle for unvaccinated workers, while not being able to return to the office or attend in-person events could impact those employees’ professional lives.

“You can choose to be unvaccinated, but then you also give up opportunities that would be beneficial to your career,” Kuzminski said. “At a certain point, that would catch up with you.”

Wall Street firms like Morgan Stanley and Citigroup now require their workers to be vaccinated to return to the office, skirting a mandate while still creating a strong incentive for inoculation. Other employers like AbbVie require only their unvaccinated employees to mask up and undergo weekly testing.

The Navy has allowed vaccinated sailors to go unmasked for the majority of its vaccination campaign, though the requirement was reintroduced at many bases for all sailors at the end of July in response to the delta variant.

Jaslyn Henyard, a junior enlisted sailor on the USS Whidbey Island, said that many people on her ship wanted to get the vaccine in order to “go back to normal life.”

“A lot of people were looking forward to getting out of those restrictions,” she said. “So once the vaccine hit the ship, a lot of people were very excited. They wanted to get it over with.”

Gay, the Bureau of Medicine and Surgery public affairs officer, said that if the rest of the country took notes from the Navy, the pandemic might soon be behind us.

“We have to remain really disciplined, and the Navy’s done a really good job with that by creating Covid-free bubbles of people,” he said. “If we can create that in our communities, I think the end would be near.”

Published : August 23, 2021

By : Syndication Washington Post, Bloomberg · Rebecca Torrence

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Escalating U.S.-China solar rift threatens Biden green goals

The first big test of Joe Bidens lofty clean-power ambitions may not be congressional approval of sweeping climate legislation, but managing a solar supply chain thats being shaken by the seizure of imported Chinese panels.

Multiple companies have now had solar components detained at U.S. ports in the aftermath of a Biden administration ban on equipment using raw materials originally from Hoshine Silicon Industry Co., according to people familiar with the situation who asked for anonymity while discussing sensitive trade issues.

The seizures come amid a new push by some U.S. solar manufacturers to extend tariffs to China-linked factories in Vietnam, Malaysia and Thailand, the U.S.’s largest panel suppliers. Together the developments threaten to disrupt the U.S. solar market, potentially jeopardizing Biden’s goal of a carbon-free power sector by 2035.

“It is clear that the administration wants 40% of the nation’s electricity generation to be from solar,” Abigail Ross Hopper, president of the Solar Energy Industries Association, said in an interview Wednesday. “These kind of uncertainties and additional costs could have a material impact on the rapid deployment goals that they have.”

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While the solar group isn’t aware of specific project delays, Hopper said the seizures have had a chilling effect on the industry. SEIA has heard about companies not wanting to contract for future shipments until they get more clarity on how the ban will be enforced.

Already, solar developers are scrambling to prove incoming goods — some of which may have been ordered months before the Biden ban — are free of Hoshine material. A major solar-panel maker warned this week that all imports from China risk being detained by U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

Manufacturer Canadian Solar said that four of its sample modules shipped from China to its U.S. office were held last week by officials due to a sourcing issue, and that all Chinese shipments were at risk of being stopped at the border.

Other companies have also been affected, with multiple containers seized at different ports, according to people familiar with the actions. The cost of having products detained at U.S. Customs facilities is prohibitive, making other companies question whether it’s worth the risk of trying to import to the U.S., one of the people said.

The Biden administration’s order is part of efforts to confront alleged human-rights abuses in the Xinjiang region. China denies the allegations, which it claims are an attempt to undermine successful businesses.

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Solar developers and manufacturers had spent months shuffling supply chains and preparing for an administration move against polysilicon, a prime ingredient in the panels that convert the sun’s rays into electricity. But the administration’s Customs order in June instead had far broader reach by targeting products containing metallurgical-grade silicon, which is used to make polysilicon. Hoshine is the world’s biggest producer of the metal.

The material is so many steps removed from completed panels that just about any module coming to the U.S. can’t yet prove it doesn’t contain Hoshine material, Philip Shen, an analyst at Roth Capital Partners, said in a research note.

U.S. solar advocates are appealing to the administration to refine its initial approach — so it still discourages human-rights abuses in Xinjiang without ensnaring imports. Hopper suggested a focus on polysilicon, not the metal from which it is formed. And some solar supporters are asking the administration to phase in future moves so companies aren’t caught flat-footed, according to two people familiar with the matter.

A White House spokesman didn’t address messages seeking comment and a Customs spokeswoman didn’t immediately address an email seeking comment.

In some respects, there has never been a brighter moment for solar power in the U.S. Installations are booming, and Biden appeared poised to deliver the most progressive climate presidency in history — on the heels of an administration steadfast on boosting fossil fuels. And yet, the industry’s supply chain has been battered by higher costs, including for modules and freight.

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Solar panels already cost about 40% more in the U.S. than the rest of the world, and expanded tariffs could lift prices further, according to Jenny Chase, BloombergNEF’s head of global solar research.

“Recent enforcement actions and international trade petitions go beyond the intended goal and risk significantly impacting U.S. solar deployment,” said Heather Zichal, chief executive officer of the American Clean Power Association, said by email.

Amid the seizures, a group called the American Solar Manufacturers Against Chinese Circumvention filed petitions with the Commerce Department seeking to extend tariffs to factories run by Chinese firms out of the three Southeast Asian countries.

The filings come at a time when some domestic solar manufacturers are seeking an extension of former President Donald Trump’s solar tariffs — and as Democrats advance a $3.5 trillion tax-and-spending plan that could benefit both solar developers and clean-energy manufacturers.

But while the seizures may hurt U.S. developers, any moves that make imports more expensive could help level the playing field for companies that want to manufacture solar equipment on U.S. soil. That would be a boost to another part of Biden’s agenda — union jobs.

“Trade actions against imported solar products may counter President Biden’s climate agenda,” Timothy Fox, a vice president of ClearView Energy Partners, said in an interview. “But they also could further his union and domestic manufacturing agenda.”

Published : August 23, 2021

By : Syndication Washington Post, Bloomberg · Brian Eckhouse, Jennifer A. Dlouhy