Curbs in Ho Chi Minh City; flights into Hanoi suspended

HANOI • Vietnam's business hub Ho Chi Minh City would begin social distancing measures for 15 days starting yesterday in an effort to curb the spread of Covid-19, the government said on Sunday.

The international airport of Vietnam's capital Hanoi will also suspend inbound flights from abroad beginning today.

The Civil Aviation Administration of Vietnam said in a statement yesterday that the "temporary suspension of receiving international flights transporting people" will begin at Hanoi's Noi Bai International Airport from today until next Monday.

Before yesterday's announcement, Vietnam had already severely limited entries of foreign arrivals, with every person coming in subjected to mandatory quarantine for 21 days in mostly state-run facilities.

Outbound international flights will continue, but the statement did not specify whether domestic flights would be part of Noi Bai's suspension.

After successfully containing the virus for most of last year, Vietnam has seen Covid-19 cases in the country more than double in the past month and its Health Minister said over the weekend that the authorities had discovered a highly infectious "new hybrid variant" - a combination of the variants first detected in India and Britain.

The country still has one of the world's lowest cases, however, with a total of 47 deaths so far.

Ho Chi Minh City - Vietnam's most populous with some nine million residents - has seen a rise in cases related to a religious mission that has recorded at least 125 positive tests, accounting for most of the city's infections, according to a government statement.

"All events that gather more than 10 people in public are banned citywide, but the city is considering lowering the number of people to just five," the government said.

Go Vap district, where the Revival Ekklesia Mission is located, will be under full restrictions, and people there will not be allowed to go out unnecessarily, the statement said.

The state-run Vietnam News Agency (VNA) reported that the Ho Chi Minh City authorities would conduct Covid-19 tests citywide with testing capacity at 100,000 samples per day.

"The city will prioritise testing high-risk people first, including workers in industrial parks and members of the religious mission," VNA reported.

"Ho Chi Minh City has done 50,000 tests so far. To date, there are at least 62,000 people who came into contact with infected ones," it added.

REUTERS, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE