People making legal entries into Vietnam by road will not have to pay for quarantine service at military-run facilities, the National Steering Committee for COVID-19 Prevention and Control said at a meeting on Friday afternoon.

The meeting was presided by Deputy Prime Minister Vu Duc Dam, head of the committee.

The committee ordered subordinate levels to strictly control borderlines in order to absolutely prevent illegal entry as the 13th National Party Congress and the Lunar New Year are drawing near.

Those who enter Vietnam by land must be subject to mandatory quarantine at concentrated camps managed by the army for at least 14 days and shall not be required to pay quarantine accommodation fees.

Anyone who detects suspicious people or those likely to have returned from foreign countries need to report to local authorities.

“It is the responsibility of the entire community to prevent the pandemic. A neglectful individual will accidentally facilitate the illegal entry and can spread the virus in the community,” Dam said.

The committee will stick to the government’s order of restricting inbound flights while leaving plans to resume commercial flights on the table amid fear of new COVID-19 variants.

Vietnam has suspended all inbound international commercial flights since late March, but the government has been operating repatriation flights to bring home Vietnamese citizens stuck abroad amid the pandemic.

Some special flights carrying foreign experts and investors have been allowed to fly into Vietnam. All people entering the country have to spend 14 days in quarantine.

At Friday’s meeting, the steering committee said that the management system of COVID-19 pandemic and immigration information has been completed, kicking-start the implementation of a closed medical surveillance process.

According to the process, all Vietnamese citizens, who registered with Vietnamese diplomatic missions abroad and airlines for their return to Vietnam, have to clearly state where they will spend quarantine time in Vietnam in their mandatory medical declaration before their arrivals.

Based on the declaration, the domestic pandemic prevention and control force will proactively prepare plans for picking up and transporting the returnees to the concentrated quarantine facilities. 

After the quarantine is completed, there must be a detailed handover between the medical authority of the quarantine facilities and the localities where the returnees will stay.

Vietnam had registered a total of 1,536 coronavirus infections, with 1,380 recoveries and 35 deaths as of Saturday morning, according to the Ministry of Health.

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