Hanoi tracks down close contacts of COVID-19 patients

Hanoi (VNA) – All of the COVID-19 infection cases in Hanoi have been tracked down, with no community transmission detected, Chairman of the municipal People’s Committee Nguyen Duc Chung said at a meeting on March 9.

Given new challenges to the disease combat, the official called for greater efforts to complete the list of those people who have been in close contact with the infection cases.

All of the overseas working trips by the city’s officials must be cancelled unless they get approval from the Prime Minister, and unnecessary conferences should be scrapped or scaled down, Chung requested.

The municipal Department of Health and the Hanoi-based National Institute of Hygiene and Epidemiology will admit first-generation patients to ease overload at the National Hospital for Tropical Diseases.

From March 10-15, the department in coordination with the city’s Military High Command will allow those who have completed their quarantine period to go home, according to the official.

As many as 1,893 people will leave concentrated quarantine centres in the city on March 10. Twenty-eight Koreans will also be allowed to return to their home country on this occasion.

Hoang Duc Hanh, Deputy Director of the department, reported that as of 15:00 on March 9, Hanoi had recorded four COVID-19 infection cases, with no fatality.

Regarding the information about the lockdown of the luxurious Metropole Hotel in Hoan Kiem district where British tourists had stayed, a representative of the district said that authorities sterilised the hotel and another at 12 Nguyen Quang Bich street.

On March 9 afternoon, the two hotels resumed their normal operation, and Metropole Hotel has not been on lockdown as presumed, the official confirmed./.