Vietnam records no new coronavirus infection Tuesday morning

Vietnam has gone 19 days straight without any case of community transmission of the novel coronavirus.

Of the total cases so far, 221 have recovered and 50 are still under treatment. Among the active cases, 12 are relapses.

Two other relapsed cases in Hanoi have tested negative four times and have been declared healthy. They are expected to be discharged Tuesday.

According to the National Hospital of Tropical Disease in Hanoi, where the two were treated after relapsing, testing shows the virus was "inactive" and could not be transmitted to others.

Doctor Nguyen Thanh Binh said the hospital has used the Realtime RT-PCR system, the world’s most trusted method now for testing and studying the novel coronavirus.

The system is "very sensitive" and able to detect the virus even when there is only one RNA left in a sample, he said. After culturing the virus samples taken from two relapsed cases, the hospital confirmed that the two relapsed patients could not transmit the virus among the community because it was actually an "inactive virus," he said.

On Monday morning, most students in the country returned to schools after an unprecedented, prolonged break due to the Covid-19 pandemic, which has affected 212 countries and territories. More than 252,300 deaths have been reported globally so far.