HCMC bars, karaoke parlors to close amid Covid threat

"Their operation causes a high level of interaction, making the effort to contain Covid-19 difficult," the city's chairman, Nguyen Thanh Phong, said at a meeting of the Steering Committee for Covid-19 Control and Prevention Friday.

Nguyen Tan Binh, director of the city Department of Health, had called for their closing, underlining the high risk of coronavirus transmission due to enclosed spaces.

The city recorded a new case, patient 2910, in Binh Tan District, after 75 days without local transmission.

The man from the northern province of Ha Nam was visiting relatives in the city when he tested positive. He had come into contact with patient 2899, a migrant worker who returned from Japan and was quarantined in Da Nang but tested positive two days after he completed the two-week quarantine period and came to his home in Ha Nam. Seven other patients in Ha Nam, Hanoi, and Hung Yen Province, also in the north, have been recorded as linked to the migrant worker.

Patient 2910's house and a neighborhood in Binh Tan District have been cordoned off, but seven people who had come into close contact (F1) with the patient have tested negative.

Phong said: "The development means the local government cannot be lax. The city has to be designated extreme high risk."

He said people going out without masks must be severely penalized since it is still common.

This is the fourth time bars and karaoke parlors in the city are being closed since Covid broke out early last year.

They had only reopened on March 19 after the previous outbreak during Tet in mid-February.

Hanoi has closed bars and karaoke parlors since Friday morning.

At a meeting this morning Binh said HCMC is "temporarily safe" since all F1 people have been quarantined and are being closely monitored.

The city has had 255 Covid cases so far, with 225 recovering.

Over 3,000 people are currently in quarantine.