Ho Chi Minh City detected 24 more COVID-19 cases on February 7 night besides four cases announced by the Health Ministry earlier the same day.

At Tan Son Nhat International Airport (Photo: VNA)

All the new patients are staff member at Tan Son Nhat International Airport, who belong to the same team with Patient 1,979 that was confirmed positive with the coronavirus over the weekend. They were all transferred to quarantined zones.

The city is tracking people who had close contact with them.

At an online conference with the city’s authorities on February 8, Minister of Health Nguyen Thanh Long required the city to act more quickly in zoning off affected areas with links to the new cases, and conducting mass testing in those areas.

Long asked the HCM City Pasteur Institute to increase testing capacity to 5,000 samples per day, adding the Ministry of Health will support the city in settling the outbreak at Tan Son Nhat airport.

“We should act faster than the outbreak”, he stressed.

Seeing the pandemic become complicated in recent days, Chairman of the municipal People’s Committee Nguyen Thanh Phong ordered competent authorities to find out the source of the outbreak so as to have effective prevention measures.

Regarding festive activities during the traditional Tet holiday at Nguyen Hue Flower Street, Tao Dan Spring Festival, Phu My Hung Flower Street, and many other flower markets in the city, Phong said disinfection gates must be arranged at the sites while visitors are not allowed to enter the areas without wearing face masks.

The events could be cancelled if prevention measures are not put in place, he added.

Source: VNA