As of February 19, Hanoi has tested coronavirus for 33,258 returnees from Hai Duong province, home to Vietnam’s biggest outbreak, in recent weeks, according to the Hanoi Department of Health.

The Medical Center of Ba Dinh district in Hanoi takes samples for people returning from Hai Duong. Photo: Pham Hung

The number of returnees from Cam Giang district, a hotspot of Covid-19 in the northern province of Hai Duong, is 2,099 people, more than 2,000 of them have taken test in Hanoi. Some 1,560 people have tested negative while the rest has not received the results yet.

The number of returnees from other parts of Hai Duong province from February 2 is 31,159 people, of them, around ten thousand or 9,752 people have taken Covid-19 test and 118 people tested negative. The results of the rest are still pending.

Deputy Director of the Hanoi Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Khong Minh Tuan warned that the risk of Covid-19 pandemic is always hidden and the pandemic would break out in the city at any time if preventive measures are loose.

"Hanoi is a traffic hub. As people’s movement is surging in the days after Tet holiday, the risk of another Covid-19 outbreak wave is real," Tuan said.

At the time of writing, Hanoi has recorded 36 cases, with health authorities saying the outbreak is unpredictable and could last longer.

There have been 755 cases confirmed across Vietnam since the pandemic resurgence late January. Quang Ninh is the country’s second latest Covid-19 outbreak with its first case being detected on January 28. The infection has since then spread to 13 other cities and provinces.

Vietnam has so far had 2,347 cases, 703 of them active.