Hanoi reopens indoor dining with Covid-19 restrictions

Municipal Vice Chairman Chu Xuan Dung said Monday that restaurants and coffee shops must have dividers between seats or ensure that customers are one meter apart from each other. He also urged these establishments to encourage takeaways.

Non-essential services like discotheques, bars, clubs, karaoke parlors, and outdoor coffee or tea stalls will remain closed until further notice, he said.

Hanoi had banned the operation of restaurants, street tea stalls and cafes on Feb. 16.

Khong Minh Tuan, deputy director of the Hanoi Center for Disease Control (CDC), said that people coming to or returning from Hai Duong on and after March 3, the day the northern province completes its lockdown, must continue to submit health declarations.

People returning to Hanoi from Covid-19 hotspots Cam Giang, Kinh Mon and Kim Thanh districts and Hai Duong Town in Hai Duong Province must also quarantine themselves at home for 14 days. A person return from Hai Duong can study and work normally if she/he tests negative for the coronavirus in the latest three days.

The capital has not recorded any new community transmission since Feb. 16. But Hoang Duc Hanh, deputy director of the Hanoi Department of Health, said the possibility of new infections remains when colleges and universities reopen and the capital starts receiving foreign experts from overseas and people from local Covid-19 hotspots.

Hanoi has recorded 36 local transmissions in the country's third Covid-19 outbreak that began on January 28.

The nation’s Covid-19 total stands at 2,461 with 1,892 recoveries and 35 deaths.