From 0:00 on July 13, 2021, Hanoi will stop all non-essential business activities to serve the prevention and control of Covid-19. Specifically, restaurants, on-site food and beverage service establishments (only allow take-out sales), hair salons, and shampoo shops. Completely stop entertainment activities, exercise, and large gatherings in parks, flower gardens, and public places.
Previously, when the epidemic was temporarily stable, from 0:00 on June 22, Hanoi allowed the reopening of hair cutting and shampooing services; indoor food and beverage services. However, it is necessary to ensure distance, have shields between people, no more than 50% of seating capacity and no more than 20 people, and close before 9:00 p.m. daily. For restaurants, wine bars, beer bars, and draft beer bars, only take-out is allowed.
However, since July 5, Hanoi has recorded a long-distance driver residing in An My commune, My Duc district and a male security guard of SEI Company, Thang Long industrial park, infected with Covid-19. From these two index cases, the city continued to have many positive cases. In the fourth wave of the epidemic from April 29 to July 12, Hanoi had 320 cases, of which 258 cases were in clusters that had been controlled, 62 new cases since July 5.
The government has found that the awareness of some people and service businesses has not been strictly implemented. In reality, there are still cases of people exercising in public areas; gathering in large numbers in public places, cafes, and some indoor food service establishments that do not fully comply with epidemic prevention regulations... In addition, there is a risk of spreading when people from other provinces and cities, including many localities that are epidemic areas, return to the capital.
Therefore, the City People's Committee decided to suspend outdoor sports and physical activities from 6:00 p.m. on July 8 until further notice from the City People's Committee.
Notably, in just 2 days of screening people returning from Ho Chi Minh City (July 9-10), Hanoi discovered 18 cases positive for SARS-CoV-2, residing in Quoc Oai (8), Hai Ba Trung (5), Ung Hoa (3), Hoang Mai (1) and Nam Tu Liem (1) districts. Some people had a schedule to travel to some restaurants, cafes and hotels in the city center.
The Hanoi Center for Disease Control has issued an urgent notice, looking for people who have been to 8 locations related to Covid-19 patients. CDC recommends that these people self-isolate at home and immediately contact the local Health Station or Health Center or call the epidemic prevention hotline: 0969.082.115 - 0949.396.11.
For those returning from Ho Chi Minh City or other epidemic areas, Hanoi requires full and honest declaration via the website www.tokhaiyte.vn or the Ncovi and Bluezone applications, and must have a negative SARS-CoV-2 virus test certificate no more than 3 days before returning to the city; cases with negative test results but entering the above epidemic areas must still be tested before returning to the city.
Hanoi assigned the City Police to coordinate with functional forces to deploy checkpoints at major gateways, crossroads, shortcuts, branch roads, inland waterway ports, wharves, inter-provincial bus stations into the city and at the Northern Airport Cluster. Accordingly, control all people and vehicles entering and leaving the city at disease control checkpoints in the area; check and compare test results, proactively screen all people returning to the city from other provinces and cities, ensuring maximum limitation of disease pathogens entering the city.
From 0:00 on July 13, Hanoi applies mandatory epidemic prevention measures for all people coming from Ho Chi Minh City and epidemic areas (the list of epidemic areas is announced and regularly updated on the Ministry of Health's electronic information portal).
Specifically, immediately notify the local authorities; the People's Committees of communes, wards and towns shall decide and supervise the 14-day home quarantine in accordance with the instructions in Decision 879/QD-BYT dated March 12, 2020 of the Ministry of Health. If there are signs of fever, cough, sore throat, difficulty breathing or loss of taste..., immediately notify the local authorities and the nearest medical facility for timely health management instructions.
People's Committees of districts, towns and cities increase the frequency of propaganda activities at the grassroots level; through the monitoring work of the community Covid-19 team and the supervision, detection and reflection of local people, promptly detect violations to prevent and handle effectively. Resolutely punish violations, strictly handle organizations and individuals who do not declare promptly or truthfully, leading to the spread of the epidemic.
Hanoi resolutely strictly handles violations such as gatherings of more than 10 people outside of offices, hospitals, schools; exercising in public places; street vendors, sidewalk tea shops, service businesses that do not strictly implement epidemic prevention and control measures...; increases the maximum fine, requires closure and considers revoking business licenses for service businesses that repeatedly violate.
