Vietnam is keeping a close watch on the situations in both Laos and Cambodia ahead of its national holidays which begin on Friday.
The county raised its alerts to the highest level ahead of Reunification Day, when domestic travel is expected to increase. All localities are to intensify surveillance, with field hospitals being set up in advance and medical personnel mobilized to support medical facilities, Nikkei Asia reports.
Fireworks displays planned for celebrations on 30 April were canceled in Ho Chi Minh City amid the high risk of a new Covid-19 outbreak.
The decision was made by municipal Chairman Nguyen Thanh Phong on the grounds of the pandemic situation becoming complicated in neighboring countries like Cambodia, Laos, and Thailand, Vietreader reports.
Vietnamese Health Minister Nguyen Thanh Long has warned that Vietnam faces a great risk of imported Covid-19 infections with mutant strains.
On Sunday, the HCMC Pasteur Institute confirmed that 85.7 percent of infected samples taken from imported Covid-19 cases from Cambodia contain the U.K. variant, and 14.3 percent have the South African variant.
Vietnam has not recorded community transmission of Covid-19 for over two months, however, illegal entrants arriving by boat from Cambodia have proved troublesome for Vietnam, which shares 1,110km of borders with Cambodia and 2,100km of its borders with Laos.
Confirmed cases of Covid-19 in Vietnam have reached 2,846, while the country has recorded 35 deaths.
