Vietnam will reduce the concentrated isolation period for those entering the country who have fully vaccinated against COVID-19 from 14 to 7 days, according to the state-controlled media.
The official letter from the Ministry of Health on reducing the period of concentrated medical isolation was issued on August 4, but did not say when this decision will be applied.
Centralized isolation is one of the measures that Vietnam applied drastically early on, including tracing the source of infection and targeted testing, to effectively contain the corona virus outbreak for most of last year. However, since the end of April this year, Vietnam has had to cope with the largest outbreak in the community caused by a new strain of COVID-19 which has a strong ability to spread.
In order to enjoy the shortened period of concentrated isolation to 7 days, people entering the country will have to be vaccinated with a full dose of COVID-19 vaccine at least 14 days before arriving in Vietnam and must have a certificate of vaccination, according to the official dispatch posted on the Government’s website VGP News.
In addition, fully vaccinated people must test negative for COVID-19 within 72 hours to be allowed to isolate for a week.
According to the new policy of the Ministry of Health, people after completing concentrated isolation will continue to be medically monitored at the place of residence. They will be required to use the Bluezone app until the end of 14 days from the date of entry for ministry’s supervision.
Bluezone application, deployed by the Ministry of Health in collaboration with the Ministry of Information and Communications nationwide since August 2020, to help detect contact with infection sources but once raised concerns about information security of the users.
Vietnam closed the border right after the outbreak of the epidemic in March last year and only allowed foreign nationals or experts to enter on the condition that they undergo two weeks of isolation at a hotel or center run by the army.
Just as the fourth outbreak in the community took a worrying turn, the Ministry of Health in early May increased the quarantine period from 14 to 21 days. However, the ministry later reverted to applying the 2-week quarantine period after foreign organizations, including the American Chamber of Commerce in Vietnam, called for a reduction in the concentrated quarantine period for people down to 7 days.
With infections increasing sharply in the past few months, to more than 8,000 in a single day last week, centralized isolation facilities across the country have become overwhelmed, according to the Health Ministry. Many pictures on social media posted by people show quarantined people concentrated in crowded places without social distancing and lying on the floor in these centers. To address this situation, the Ministry of Health last month allowed provinces and cities to reduce isolation times and pilot medical isolation of community infections (F1) at home.
Vietnam has recorded 177,812 COVID-19 infections with 2,327 deaths as of August 4, according to statistics from the Ministry of Health, and most of them are from the latest outbreak in Ho Chi Minh City. Currently, the financial center of the country, together with the capital Hanoi and many provinces in the South are in a state of blockade.
Out of about 98 million people in Vietnam, only 744,000 are fully vaccinated, according to official figures cited by Reuters. Health Minister Nguyen Thanh Long on August 2 warned that the pace of vaccination in Vietnam is slowing down and called on the private health system to participate in accelerating the speed of COVID-19 vaccination.
Thoibao.de (Translated)
