Returnees to HCM City must submit ‘honest’ health declaration forms

HCM
City (VNS/VNA) – Ho Chi Minh City’s Department of Health has
told people who have returned to the city from other provinces and
cities in the past 14 days to complete ‘honest’ amid
the unpredictable COVID-19 situation across the country.

Employees
are expected to complete health declarations at their workplace if
they travelled to other provinces and cities in the past two weeks.

People
returning from localities considered hotspots as announced by the HCM City
Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) must notify local
authorities and health units for guidance on surveillance and testing.

Returnees
from other provinces and cities can complete health declarations on
the Ministry of Health’s website tokhaiyte.vn.

District authorities
and newly established Thu Duc city, including the COVID-19 community
taskforce, will supervise the health declaration activities.

As
of February 17, the city’s CDC began screening people returning from
hotspots, who will be put in centralised quarantine for 14 days and tested
for COVID-19 four times.

According
to the CDC, the city is continuing to conduct extensive screening in the
community, especially at public transport areas, to assess the risk of disease.

At
Tan Son Nhat International Airport, 10-20 percent of arrivals will be randomly
sampled for testing. At Saigon Railway Station, 100 samples of passengers will
be tested a day. 

At
the bus station in District 12 and the old and new Mien Dong
(Eastern) bus stations, 100 passengers will be tested a day.

The
CDC will adjust the number of samples needed for testing at different public
transport locations, depending on the COVID-19 situation.

According
to the CDC, tens of thousands of passengers are returning from provinces and
cities nationwide after the holiday, posing a higher risk of infection.

The
first case detected at the airport was identified as ‘patient 1979’
on February 5.

The
city had recorded 36 COVID-19 cases as of February 17, including 10
cargo loading staff at Tan Son Nhat airport and 26 cases who are family
members of the loading staff. 

“The
infection chain at Tan Son Nhat hotspot has basically been
contained,” according to the CDC.

The
CDC attributed the containment to the strategy of rapid
testing after the sources of infection had been zoned. “This
was the decisive factor that helped control the infection chain at
the airport hotspot,” it said.

From
February 11 to 14, a total of 9,480 samples (of which 2,939 from medical
workers) were collected for testing at wholesale markets, traditional
markets, bus stations, motels and areas around industrial zones, all
of which tested negative for the virus.

The
outbreak has basically been under control in most localities, other than
the northern province of Hai Duong, the country’s main COVID-19 epicentre,
said Deputy Prime Minister Vu Duc Dam at a recent meeting with
officials. 

Social
distancing measures began in the entire Hai Duong province on February 16 as
the epicentre has reported more than 500 locally transmitted cases since the outbreak began
in late January./.