Hanoi will close again from July 13 restaurants, cafés, and barbershops after three weeks due to the resurgence of SARS-CoV-2 a week ago.

The request made by Chairman of the Hanoi People’s Committee Chu Ngoc Anh on Monday afternoon [July 12] put a halt to the services, which resumed from June 22 after the city’s successful efforts in the fight against Covid-19.

A barbershop in Hanoi. Photo: The Hanoi Times

Activities like street café, street vending, public physical exercises, and crowd gathering of more than 10 people outside offices, hospitals, and schools are also subject to the ban.

In addition, Hanoi doubles home quarantine time for returnees from affected areas to two weeks. Notably, people coming from Ho Chi Minh City, the current epicenter, and other pandemic-stricken localities need to show negative testing results conducted maximum three days upon the arrival.

Police will deploy Covid-19 checkpoints in the city’s entrance gates, on roads, waterways, airports, and railways to monitor the flows of arrivals.

Over the past days, Hanoi has identified more than 6,300 people coming from Ho Chi Minh City from June 23. Testing of returnees in the last two days has detected 18 infections.

Since the resurgence of Covid-19, the capital city has found 61 people tested positive for the novel coronavirus, including half is linked to Ho Chi Minh City.

In response to the comeback of the virus, Hanoi’s top leaders, including Secretary of the municipal Party Committee Dinh Tien Dung and Chairman of the Hanoi People’s Committee Chu Ngoc Anh asked local authorities to take tougher preventive measures, saying that they need to preserve the city’s anti-pandemic achievements.

Hanoi was one of the first localities suffering the ongoing wave of pandemic but it did a good job in the face that Covid-19 has swept 58 out of 63 cities and provinces, according to experts.