Chairman of the Hanoi People's Committee Chu Ngoc Anh asked localities act more swiftly in the prevention and control of Covid-19 as the pandemic is expanding right ahead of the Lunar New Year (Tet) holiday.

Chairman of the Hanoi People's Committee Chu Ngoc Anh checks a mini supermarket in Thanh Oai district of Hanoi. Photo: Kinhtedothi.vn

During an inspection to Thanh Oai and Chuong My districts on February 3, Mr. Ngoc Anh required localities to consider the fight against the pandemic as the primary and urgent task before, during and after Tet holiday while production and trade activities should go on unhindered.

He requested localities to review the efficiency of combating the pandemic in residential areas, villages and the entire city, as well as improving the testing capacity.

Mr. Ngoc Anh asked for speeding up F1 and F2 cases tracing, raising public awareness on 5K principles and strictly punishing violators of prevention and control regulations. 5K means "Khau trang" (face mask) - "Khu khuan" (disinfection) - "Khoang cach" (distance) - "Khong tu tap" (no gatherings) - "Khai bao y te" (health declaration).

The Hanoi mayor noted that the new SARS-CoV-2 variant is spreading faster than the virus without mutation by 70%, while 70-80% of patients showed no symptoms.

“In case that the number of people having contact with Covid-19 patients piles up, making it difficult to trace their contact history, localities should immediately apply social distancing and take samples for large-scale testing,” the mayor said.

Hanoi has so far recorded 21 cases positive to coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 related to outbreaks in Quang Ninh and Hai Duong, Vietnam’s two biggest Covid-19 epicenters.

At the time of writing, the country has recorded 1,891 SARS-CoV-2 infections. Of the total, 1,003 were locally-transmitted cases, including 310 linked to Hai Duong since the latest coronavirus outbreak hit the province on January 27.