Police in Ho Chi Minh City on Monday expelled 13 foreigners who had been caught entering Vietnam illegally after they completed their quarantine period in the metropolis.

This is the third deportation in the southern city since the beginning of 2021.

Police officers did not reveal their nationality.

Like the two previous cases, the 13 border jumpers said that they were either looking for employment in Ho Chi Minh City or waiting to be transported to Cambodia to find jobs.

All of them had been medically checked and completed the required quarantine period in Nha Be District prior to their deportation.

Given the complicated developments of the COVID-19 pandemic, police units and grassroots authorities in Ho Chi Minh City have implemented preventive measures and beefed up patrols and administrative inspections in order to promptly detect foreigners unlawfully migrating to Vietnam.

They also strictly punish those organizing the illegal entry of foreigners.

Ho Chi Minh City authorities decided on Monday to extend the enhanced social distancing measures implemented since May 31 by another two weeks given an escalation in transmissions.

From April 27 to Tuesday afternoon, the city has recorded 923 local cases of COVID-19, making it the locality with the third-highest number of infections in Vietnam, after Bac Giang with 4,263 patients and Bac Ninh with 1,394.

Hanoi follows in fourth position with 464 infections.

These infections are among the total caseload of 7,787 recorded in 40 of Vietnam’s 63 provinces and cities in this ongoing virus wave -- the fourth and the worst since the pathogen first hit the country on January 23, 2020.

The nation has documented an accumulation of 10,999 patients, including 9,356 domestic and 1,643 imported cases ever since.

Recoveries have reached 4,236 while 61 patients have died, mostly with critical underlying medical conditions like cancer and chronic renal failure.

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