The number of people infected with SARS-CoV-2 in Vietnam reached 7,042 as of May 30, including more than 4,000 detected over the past month.

Testing in Go Vap District, HCM City on May 29. Photo: CDC HCMC

Meanwhile, the number of death stayed at 47.

Bac Giang topped localities with 2,118 cases. The northern province, which is about 50 km away from Hanoi, is home to hundreds of foreign-invested companies, including Apple’s major assembler Foxconn and dozens of Samsung Electronics Vietnam (SEV)’s suppliers.

On Sunday [May 30], Covid-19 news in Vietnam captured public attention with the decision to enact social distancing by Ho Chi Minh City and the advice not to go out of the city given to seniors by Hanoi.

Ho Chi Minh City, the most populous metropolis in Vietnam, will enact from May 31 two-week period of social distancing for the first time since April 2020.

The decision was made after the city detected more than 100 cases in the past two days linked to a Christian mission cluster that first emerged on May 26, with an unknown source of transmission.

Go Vap district, where the Revival Ekklesia Mission is located, and Thanh Loc ward in District 12 will be put on lockdown.

In a more decisive move, the local government will conduct testing citywide with roughly 100,000 samples per day from the high-risk areas first, Chairman of the municipal People’s Committee Nguyen Thanh Phong said at a meeting on May 30.

He also warned that Covid-19 might attack industrial parks in the city after two cases were found in two big industrial parks namely Tan Binh and Tay Bac Cu Chi.

Vietnam's Covid-19 cases. Source: MoH. Chart: Minh Vu

On May 30, Hanoi asked the 9th and 12th graders not to go out of the city from now until they finish the secondary and high school exams that are scheduled for June 10-11 and July 7-8, respectively. The city has around 225,000 seniors.

The request is aimed to protect schoolchildren to make sure that none of them will miss the important exams because of Covid-19.

Given the rising infections and first-generation contacts of confirmed cases, Minister of Labors, Invalids and Social Affairs Dao Ngoc Dung said at a meeting on May 29 that the ministry will cover all meals for children less than 16 years old who are in centralized quarantine. Children aged less than 16 accounts for 6% of the quarantined people, he said.

Local health experts have warned that the infections will be on the rise in the coming days. Minister of Health Nguyen Thanh Long said the new hybrid variant, which is highly transmissible through air, was detected through genetic sequencing on Covid-19 patients in Vietnam.