A Lotte Mart supermarket in Ho Chi Minh City has been temporarily shut down following the detection of three positive coronavirus cases.

The lockdown was enforced on Tuesday at the request of the People’s Committee of District 7, where the retail store is located, said a representative of the supermarket, part of a store chain owned by South Korea’s Lotte Group.

Local health authorities earlier confirmed that it had recorded three positive coronavirus cases related to Lotte Mart in District 7, including a female employee at a confectionery stall, a maintenance worker, and a delivery worker who shipped bananas to the retail outlet.

On Tuesday morning, health workers began taking samples from around 1,000 employees of the supermarket for coronavirus testing.   

All direct contacts of the three positive cases have been identified and further steps have been deployed, local health authorities said.

Under the regulations of the municipal Department of Industry and Trade, the Lotte Mart outlet has three days to disinfect its entire premises, provide a list of employees classified by level of exposure to the COVID-19 cases, and take quarantine measures under the instructions of health authorities.

Currently, all Lotte Mart employees working in Ho Chi Minh City have been vaccinated against COVID-19. 

During the suspension, the retail outlet’s online shopping operations are maintained and all customers located in a radius of 15 kilometers from the supermarket can place their online purchase orders, Lotte Mart said. 

The supermarket’s temporary lockdown has partly reflected the escalation of coronavirus infections in the city, which has so far recorded over 7,000 cases and has recently topped the country in daily new infections.

At noon on Tuesday, the Ministry of Health confirmed 248 new COVID-19 patients, including 242 domestic and six imported cases, of which 209 cases were detected in the southern city.

The latest cases have taken Vietnam’s tally to 21,560, including 8,022 recoveries and 90 deaths, since early 2020.

Since the pandemic’s fourth wave erupted on April 27, the country has documented 18,113 domestic infections.

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