Four flights to bring 600 more Vietnamese back home from abroad

By Minh Nga   March 25, 2020 | 04:45 am PT
Four flights to bring 600 more Vietnamese back home from abroad
Vietnamese returning from abroad fill out health declaration forms at Noi Bai International Airport in Hanoi, March 18, 2020. Photo by VnExpress/Giang Huy.
Hundreds of Vietnamese living abroad are expected to arrive in Hanoi on Wednesday as they seek to escape the Covid-19 pandemic.

Noi Bai International Airport will receive 577 passengers coming aboard four flights from Russia, Japan and Thailand.

On Tuesday the airport received 229 Vietnamese returning from countries being swept by the pandemic, and it was 1,712 last Sunday and 2,585 on Friday.

In an unexpected move, the Ministry of Transport on Monday decided for Ho Chi Minh’s Tan Son Nhat Airport to suspend all flights carrying Vietnamese citizens to the city, as isolation facilities in there have been overloaded.

The suspension took effect from Wednesday and will last at least until the end of this month.

Earlier, city officials had said that they expected to receive 17,000 Vietnamese coming home from abroad this week.

As one of the latest move to contain Covid-19, all Vietnamese carriers have suspended international routes starting Wednesday.

The last international flight from Germany’s Frankfurt operated by Vietnam Airlines, the only Vietnamese carrier to operate direct flights to European cities, landed at Van Don on Wednesday, carrying 170 passengers.

According the Airports Corporation of Vietnam, so far this month, Can Tho International Airport in the southern city of Can Tho has served 24 international flights which were initially set to land in Tan Son Nhat. They carried 3,500 people, and most of them came from areas hit by the Covid-19: South Korea, Singapore, Thailand, Taiwan, Indonesia, Germany, Australia and the U.K.

Vietnam had previously announced to put every one returning from abroad into centralized facilities for quarantine in 14 days. Arrivals will have their health checked every day at those camps and anyone showing symptoms of Covid-19 disease will be taken to hospitals.

The nation has recorded 134 Covid-19 cases thus far. Of them, 117 are active and the rest have been discharged from hospitals.

The nation is tagging 1,596 as suspected cases. These are people with Covid-19 symptoms that have entered the country from stricken areas or come into close contact with such arrivals. 

 
 
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