Hanoi is taking urgent measures to prevent and control the Covid-19 outbreak in industrial zones and export processing zones.

This move, under a dispatch issued by Chairman of the Hanoi People's Committee Chu Ngoc Anh on May 12, is conducted after SARS-CoV-2 cases were reported in industrial zones in the capital city’s neighboring provinces of Bac Ninh and Bac Giang.

Hanoi is home to 38 industrial zones with hundreds of thousands workers who mostly work in close spaces, come and leave workplaces at the same time and share small boarding houses or dormitory rooms.

Hanoi urges to protect industrial zones from Covid-19. Photo: Kinhtedothi.vn

“Industrial zones will face great danger if a Covid-19 outbreak spreads within their facilities and Hanoi will likely suffer a huge burden dealing with the consequences,” the mayor noted.

Chairman Anh said it’s necessary to carefully prepare concentrated quarantine camps to avoid isolating Covid-19 affected people in substandard quarantine area, which poses a high risk of cross-infection.

All districts must enhance communication on prevention and control regulations to large employers, particularly those at industrial parks. Businesses must also actively join in periodic virus screening to ensure safe production.

“Production and business establishments and industrial parks should establish temporary medical isolation rooms in case that a Covid-19 suspected case is reported,” he wrote.

Employers are required to sign commitments that they must fully comply with the regulations on the prevention of Covid-19 and assume responsibility for epidemic prevention at companies. Individuals and units that do not comply with Covid-19 prevention regulations at the workplace will receive tough punishment.

According to the Steering Committee for Covid-19 Prevention and Control, forty cases of Covid-19 were linked with two outbreaks in industrial parks in Bac Giang province.

The committee added that after detecting a case in Samsung Electronics Vietnam in Bac Ninh province, authorities identified 49 people (F1) who had close contact with the person and 1,166 people (F2) who had contact with F1.

Also in Bac Ninh, local authorities identified 27 F1 and 589 F2 cases linked with the case in Johnson Health Vietnam. The infection in Canon Vietnam has 40 F1 and 533 F2 cases.

Vietnam is now home to 369 industrial parks and nearly 30 border gate economic zones and processing zones with 3.8 million workers, and around 700 industrial clusters employing 600,000 people.