From 8:00am on August 16 to 8:00am on August 23, Da Nang will stop all activities citywide in tandem with banning all residents from leaving their homes for all as a tougher restriction amid rising coronavirus infections.

The move came amid the city has, over recent days, seen a rise in the number of community-acquired infections linked to more complicated COVID-19 clusters, especially at the Hoa Cuong Wholesale Market, the largest in Central Viet Nam which has been shut down due to high exposure to the deadly virus.

The lockdown order essentially means that all locals are not allowed to leave their homes while manufacturing enterprises at the Da Nang Hi-tech Park and industrial zones are still permitted to operate but only with a maximum of 30% of the number of employees at their unit.

All companies and national/ municipal government offices would have to let their employees remain at the place of work for 7 days without leaving under the so-called ‘ 3- on- the- spot” (on-site production, on-site dining, on-site rest) approach to meet the safety requirements for workers.

During the week-long order, functional local forces will perform mass COVID-19 testing throughout the city to spot and isolating positive cases from the community as soon as possible, thus urgently zoning and accurately assessing the level of infection risk in each district, ward, commune, hamlet, and residential group for more appropriate pandemic prevention and control measures in the coming time.

It is highly recommended that people should not rush to hoard goods in large quantities and gather in crowds at one certain place for shopping, which will increase the risk of COVID-19 infection.

The application of stronger measures as above aims to focus on moving towards the better control of the virus resurgence. Although this tough restriction will impacted on people's lives, it is hoped that all people to support and join hands with the local government to put the virus under control as soon as possible.

Reporting by DAC MANH – Translating by A.T