Leaders of Phu Tho Province in northern Vietnam shuttered several K-12 schools last weekend after 47 local students were found infected with COVID-19.

The direction was confirmed by Nguyen Van Manh, director of the Phu Tho Department of Education and Training, during an interview with Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper on Sunday.

The education authority plans to close in-person classes for one week so that officers can perform COVID-19 screening and outline high-risk areas related to infections.

After this phase, the department will consider resuming school operations or switching to online classes based on the real situations.

The education department allowed several schools in Viet Tri City and Lam Thao District to halt classes from Saturday to monitor and report individuals that had come into contact with confirmed COVID-19 patients, according to Manh.

On the weekend, Phu Tho’s medical forces were put on full alert as they detected six new COVID-19 infections from the communities in Viet Tri City and Lam Thao District, the source of transmissions remaining unclear.

Among these six cases is a pair of siblings who were respectively attending Chu Hoa Elementary School and Chu Hoa Middle School in Viet Tri.

Subsequent contact tracing and mass testing efforts on Saturday evening detected another 45 coronavirus-positive patients, all of whom are seventh-graders from Chu Hoa Middle School in Viet Tri, according to Manh.

Starting 12:00 pm on Sunday, Viet Tri City has ceased all outdoor events, festivals, as well as non-essential businesses, including karaoke parlors, bars, Internet cafés, massage parlors, beauty lounges, gyms, and sit-in dining services.

Phu Tho Province has discovered 68 infection cases since the fourth wave of COVID-19 infections emerged in Vietnam on April 27, with 54 cases reported over the past week, according to news site VnExpress.

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