COVID-19: Three further community infections recorded in Hai Duong

All of the new infections are F1 contacts related to previously confirmed patients in the outbreak of Kim Lien commune, Kim Thanh district, Hai Duong province where one of the first two cases in the nation's ongoing COVID-19 outbreak was found late last month, when the virus recurred in the nation after almost two months.

Since then, the virus have spread to 13 cities and provinces, with 803 local infections confirmed, including Hai Duong reporting the highest number of locally-transmitted cases at 620, trailed by its neighbor Quang Ninh at 60.

One day earlier, the northern port city of Hai Phong also recorded three new domestic infections. In the face of the complicated developments of the COVID-19 pandemic in the city, the Chairman of Hai Phong City People's Committee, Head of the provincial Steering Committee for COVID-19 Prevention and Control has decided to carry out a score of urgent measures to swiftly contain the disease.

The Hai Phong City People's Committee has agreed to put three locations related to positive COVID-19 cases in lockdown and in medical quarantine to slow the spread of the virus among the community.

Meanwhile the northern province of Hai Duong is poised to increase the testing capacity to 80,000 samples per day by mobilizing the maximum force to become involved in taking samples in order to meet this capacity and work out a plan to conduct the sampling based on three groups: high-risk, risked and low-risk.

Regarding the fresh outbreak in Hai Duong province's Kim Thanh district, the local health sector will step up contact tracing, zone off affected areas, and conduct COVID-19 testing as quickly as possible with test results announced within the same day.

Kim Thanh district will also take samples of all employees working in enterprises in the area, while strictly complying with safe regulations regarding pandemic control set out by the Ministry of Health.

The national infection tally has gone up to 2,395 so far, including 1,496 local infections, 899 imported cases, and 1,717 recoveries.