In-depth
Ministry raises warning over rising migration for Tet
  • | dtinews.vn | January 20, 2021 07:33 PM
Minister of Health Nguyen Thanh Long has called for tightened measures to cope with the rising threats of the Covid-19 pandemic as more people are returning from abroad for Tet.

  

Minister of Health Nguyen Thanh Long speaks at the meeting on January 20.


The problems were raised during an online meeting about Covid-19 prevention held by the Ministry of Health on January 20. According to Long, the number of infected cases in the world is still on the rise and Vietnam still is at risk of community infection as more people are returning home from abroad.

No more repatriation flights will be held from now until the Tet Holiday. However, illegal border crossings are a problem. The authorities have recently detected up to 500 illegal border crossing cases a day compared to just 100-150 normally.

According to Long, all border crossing cases involved a broker or a transportation firm. Social networks like Facebook, Zalo and WeChat are often used to arrange the crossings. He also called for everyone to detect and report illegal border crossers.

"We asked for all locality authorities to focus to detect and put an end to those rings. Transportation firms involved in such cases must be strictly punished. Vietnamese people can return home via official channels and must be quarantined as regulated," he said.

Even the flight crew and experts who go to Vietnam for work must be quarantined in groups. There will be no self-isolation except special cases approved by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Locality authorities must also always be prepared for new community cases. The medical facilities must be on high alert to deal with emergencies and to avoid infection inside the hospitals.

Dang Quang Tan, head of the Preventive Medicine Department, said the world had recorded over 96 million infected cases and two million deaths. During the first two weeks of 2021, there were 12.3 million infections worldwide, accounting for 13% of the total cases up until now.

According to WHO, the SARS-CoV-2 variant detected in the UK has now been found in over 50 countries and the variant detected in South Africa that was also found in 23 countries.

For the first 20 days of 2021, Vietnam detected 75 imported cases or 8.4% of the total imported cases up until now.

Leave your comment on this story