Urgent: From 0:00 on July 13th, Hanoi will suspend all non-essential business and service activities.

From 0:00 on July 13, 2021, Hanoi suspended all non-essential business activities to support the prevention and control of the Covid-19 epidemic. Specifically, restaurants, dine-in service establishments (only takeaway is allowed), and barbershops/hair salons are prohibited. Activities related to recreation, exercise, and large gatherings in parks, gardens, and other public places are strictly prohibited.

Previously, when the pandemic was temporarily stabilized, from 0:00 on June 22nd, Hanoi allowed the reopening of hair salons and indoor dining services. However, social distancing must be ensured, with protective barriers between people, seating capacity limited to 50% and no more than 20 people, and closing before 9 PM daily. Restaurants, bars, and pubs selling draft beer are only permitted to offer takeout services.

However, from July 5th, Hanoi recorded a long-distance truck driver residing in An My commune, My Duc district, and a male security guard at SEI Company in Thang Long Industrial Park, both infected with Covid-19. From these two initial cases, the city continued to see many more positive cases. The fourth wave of the epidemic, from April 29th to July 12th, saw Hanoi record 320 cases, including 258 cases from previously controlled clusters and 62 new cases since July 5th.

Authorities have observed that some citizens and businesses are still not strictly adhering to regulations. In reality, there are still instances of people exercising in public areas; gathering in large groups in public places, cafes, and some indoor food service establishments that do not fully comply with epidemic prevention regulations... Furthermore, there is a risk of transmission when people from other provinces and cities, including many areas currently experiencing outbreaks, return to the capital.

Therefore, the City People's Committee has decided to temporarily suspend all outdoor physical and sports activities from 6 PM on July 8th until further notice from the City People's Committee.

In particular, in just 2 days of screening tests for people returning from Ho Chi Minh City (July 9-10), Hanoi detected 18 positive cases of SARS-CoV-2, residing in Quoc Oai district (8), Hai Ba Trung (5), Ung Hoa (3), Hoang Mai (1) and Nam Tu Liem (1). Some people had travel itineraries to several restaurants, cafes and hotels in the city center.

The Hanoi Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has issued an urgent notice seeking individuals who have visited eight locations linked to a COVID-19 patient. The CDC advises these individuals to self-isolate at home and immediately contact their local health station or call the disease prevention hotline: 0969.082.115 - 0949.396.11.

For those returning from Ho Chi Minh City or other epidemic areas, Hanoi requires them to declare fully and truthfully via the website www.tokhaiyte.vn or the Ncovi/Bluezone applications, and must have a negative SARS-CoV-2 test result obtained no more than 3 days before returning to the city; cases with negative test results but who have visited the aforementioned epidemic areas must still undergo testing before returning to the city.

Hanoi has assigned the City Police to take the lead in coordinating with other functional forces to deploy control checkpoints at major gateways, cross roads, side streets, inland waterways, inter-provincial train and bus stations entering the city, and at the Northern Airport Cluster. Accordingly, all people and vehicles entering and leaving the city will be controlled at these disease control checkpoints; test results will be checked and verified, and proactive screening will be conducted for all individuals returning to Hanoi from other provinces and cities, ensuring minimal risk of disease transmission.

From 0:00 on July 13th, Hanoi will implement mandatory epidemic prevention measures for all individuals arriving from Ho Chi Minh City and other epidemic areas (the list of epidemic areas is published and regularly updated on the Ministry of Health's electronic portal).

Specifically, immediately report to the local authorities; the People's Committees of communes, wards, and towns will issue decisions and supervise home isolation for 14 days in accordance with the guidelines in Decision 879/QD-BYT dated March 12, 2020, of the Ministry of Health. If there are signs of fever, cough, sore throat, shortness of breath, or loss of taste, etc., immediately notify the local authorities and the nearest health facility for timely health management guidance.

The People's Committees of districts, counties, and towns should increase the frequency of propaganda activities at the grassroots level; through the monitoring work of community Covid-19 teams and the monitoring, detection, and reporting by people in the area, promptly detect violations to prevent and effectively handle them. Strictly penalize violations and severely punish organizations and individuals who fail to report in a timely or truthful manner, leading to the spread of the disease.

Hanoi is determined to strictly handle violations such as gatherings of more than 10 people outside offices, hospitals, and schools; exercising in public places; street vendors, sidewalk tea stalls, and service businesses that do not strictly implement epidemic prevention and control measures...; increasing the highest fines, requiring closure, and considering the revocation of business licenses for service businesses that repeatedly violate regulations.