HCMC extends social distancing order by two more weeks

The city-wide social distancing measure means social events are suspended while gatherings of 20 people or more in one place and of 10 people or more outside workplaces, schools and hospitals are banned. A minimum distance of two meters between people in public places should be ensured.

The extension is justified as the coronavirus still lurks inside the community, and a premature lifting of the social distancing order may give it a chance to proliferate further, said director of the HCMC Department of Health Nguyen Tan Binh.

A previous two-week social distancing period for the city began on May 31 and was supposed to end on Monday, where a similar ban on social events, gatherings of 20 people or more in one place and of 10 people or more outside workplaces, schools and hospitals was in place. Go Vap District and District 12's Thanh Loc Ward, the center of a major cluster emerging from a Christian mission, underwent a stricter social distancing order, where gatherings of more than two people in public are banned and people are requested to leave home only for emergencies, buying food and medicine, and working in factories, production facilities and businesses that involve "essential" goods and services.

Monday extension means Go Vap and District 12 now apply the same restrictions as other places in the city.

HCMC, home to 13 million people, has recorded 819 local Covid-19 infections in Vietnam's latest coronavirus wave since late April, having the third-highest number of infections behind Bac Giang and Bac Ninh. The southern metropolis has observed the emergence of several concerning coronavirus clusters which have sparked infections in all its 21 districts and Thu Duc City.

On Sunday the city recorded 95 local Covid-19 cases, its highest number of daily new infections since the disease first appeared in Vietnam early last year.