Covid threat looms large as more localities report cases

The 12 comprise eight in hotspot Vinh Phuc Province and one each in Hanoi, Hoi An Town, Dong Nai Province and Hai Duong Province.

Further tests are needed to tag them as Covid-19 patients.

The Hoi An victim, 27, is the wife of patient 2982, who was diagnosed with Covid on Tuesday morning.

The man, 28, works in a hotel in Da Nang and the source of his transmission is yet to be identified.

He had fever and fatigue on May 2 and went for a check to the Hoan My Da Nang Hospital, which confirmed the next day that he had Covid.

The Dong Nai Province case has also been traced to him. The 44-year-old woman works as the manager in a bar in Da Nang, and contact tracing found that she had come into close contact with one of his F1, the term used to describe people who come into contact with someone diagnosed later with Covid.

She reported to local authorities as soon as she learned about the F1, and was isolated and tested.

In the northern Hai Duong, a man reported to authorities after it was announced he had been on the same flight with a group of Chinese experts diagnosed later with Covid.

A 32-year-old woman from Da Nang who sit near the group of Chinese experts on the flight have also been reported by Hanoi authorities as a Covid suspect.

They had all been on Vietnam Airlines flight VN160 from Da Nang to Hanoi on April 29.

The five Chinese had arrived in Vietnam to work in early April and were quarantined in a hotel in the northern province of Yen Bai from April 9 to 23, during which time they tested negative three times.

After completing the quarantine, they began working at the Trung Bac A Company and continued to have their health monitored for 14 days by local medical staff.

They visited many places in the north between April 23 and 25, and some returned to China on April 28. Chinese authorities have since notified their Vietnamese counterparts that four of them have tested positive for Covid.

So far 14 people in Vinh Phuc and one in Hanoi are found to have contracted the infection from them.

Eight more in Vinh Phuc are suspects and have been tested.

In fact, Vinh Phuc health authorities are taking no chances and have carried out mass testing, collecting 2,845 samples.

Also on Tuesday it was announced that a doctor from the National Hospital for Tropical Diseases in Hanoi tested positive for the novel coronavirus when going overseas for a business trip.

The source of his infection is not known, and Hanoi authorities are contact tracing everyone who had been in contact with him.

As of Wednesday Vietnam has confirmed 38 Covid cases in the latest outbreak that began on April 29 after more than a month without infections.

Of them 35 are linked to hotspots in the northern provinces of Vinh Phuc and Ha Nam, where some people were found with the infection after coming out of the mandatory 14-day quarantine and testing negative two or three times, including the Chinese.

The series of infections were reported in the wake of a four-day holiday weekend ending Monday when there was a lot of travel and crowd gatherings.