Illegal Chinese migrant recovers from Covid-19

The patient was confirmed recovered from the disease caused by the new coronavirus Tuesday morning, following two weeks of treatment at the Covid-19 field hospital in Ho Chi Minh City’s Cu Chi District.

"He will be isolated for 14 more days, as per protocol to avoid relapse, before transferral to the police," said hospital director Nguyen Thanh Dung.

On July 27, he had entered Vietnam with seven other Chinese nationals via the northern border. The group then traveled by car to HCMC on July 27-29. He was found on July 30 and sent for quarantine.

The man was eventually confirmed as "patient 912" on August 14.

HCMC’s Center for Disease Control stressed that had he not been found, the man would have spread the virus among the community, creating Covid-19 hotspots with no clear source of transmission.

This would have created an unprecedented problem for the densely populated economic hub.

Aside from the Chinese, Cu Chi Field Hospital on Tuesday also released a 58-year-old woman who had experienced a Covid-19 relapse on returning from the U.S.

The woman, a HCMC resident, was quarantined upon arrival on July 16 and treated for Covid-19 in the northern Hai Duong Province. She was discharged on August 3 and returned home, but relapsed three days later.

Vietnam discharged a total of 22 Covid-19 patients on Tuesday. Three of them were in Hanoi, three in the nearby Hai Duong Province, two in the central province of Quang Tri, five in the epicenter Da Nang and seven in its neighbor Quang Nam Province, including a nine-year-old girl.

Vietnam has recorded 1,044 cases of Covid-19 since the pandemic hit. Of these, 34 have died.