Authorities of District 6, Tan Binh District, and Binh Tan District in Ho Chi Minh City can seek permission to implement social distancing if necessary, Tu Luong, deputy director of the municipal department of Information and Communications, said at a meeting on Tuesday afternoon.

The Ho Chi Minh City People’s Committee will approve social distancing in areas at high risk of infection, according to Luong.

The said three districts are where COVID-19 patients and their contacts have visited over the past days.

Besides, authorities of District 1, District 3, District 6, District 10, Phu Nhuan District, Binh Tan District, and Tan Phu District were requested to inspect the places patient 1,347, Vietnam’s first locally-transmitted COVID-19 patient after nearly three months, had visited and to seal them off when necessary. 

The city’s authorities emphasized the importance of criteria guiding the behaviors of organizational and individual economic constituents in the pandemic context, which was issued in May.

Agencies, organizations, and people must strictly follow the regulations of wearing face masks and using hand sanitizer in public places, especially at schools and hospitals.

The municipal People’s Committee requested that patient 1,342, a Vietnam Airlines flight attendant who spread the disease to his friend that later became patient 1,347, be strictly handled for violating the COVID-19 prevention and control regulations.

The city’s authorities also asked competent agencies to study regulations and appropriate punishments for people who spread dangerous infectious diseases to the community, Luong said.

The Ho Chi Minh City Center for Disease Control has tested a total of 737 samples since Tuesday afternoon, of which 37 samples were from people in direct contact with patient 1,342, and 372 from those in close contact with patient 1,347.

All of those 737 samples returned negative for the novel coronavirus.

Vietnam’s COVID-19 tally stood at 1,351 as of 4:30 pm on Wednesday, with 1,195 recoveries and 35 deaths, according to the Ministry of Health.

The Southeast Asian country had gone 88 days without an infection in the community before patient 1,347 was announced on Monday.

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