Northern province offers Covid-19 test on demand to enable post-Tet travel

Six healthcare facilities in the northern province Tuesday began offering the test at a maximum cost of VND734,000 ($32).

The seven-day Tet break saw people all over the country return home to their extended family and gather to celebrate the arrival of the new lunar year, increasing the chances of the disease’s spread.

The six facilities are Quang Ninh Provincial Hospital, Bai Chay Hospital, Quang Ninh Obstetrics and Pediatrics Hospital, Quang Ninh Center for Disease Control (CDC), Vietnam - Sweden Hospital, and Vinmec International General Hospital.

If companies and other organizations want their employees tested, the hospitals will send personnel to collect samples.

If anyone tests positive, they will inform that person directly by phone and notify the province CDC.

Right on the first morning the Quang Ninh Obstetrics and Pediatrics Hospital collected almost 200 samples.

Technically, the test results should take 24 hours, though in the province it could take longer because of the numbers.

Quang Ninh is where one of the first two cases in Vietnam’s latest Covid outbreak was detected on January 28. The other was in neighboring Hai Duong Province.

Since then the province has had 60 cases, second after only Hai Duong, which has had 539.

The infection has since then spread to 13 other cities and provinces, including Hanoi and HCMC.

Vietnam has so far had 2,311 cases, 699 of them active.