Of the figure, there were nine foreigners including eight foreign experts (four from India, one from the Philippines, one from the RoK, one from Japan, one from Russia) and a Russian baby. The rest of the 27 newly-infected cases are Vietnamese returnees of whom two were repatriated from Romania, four from Japan, two from the Czech Republic, four from France, two from the RoK, 12 from Russia, one from the UK.

Meanwhile, 38 patients were declared free of the virus over the past week, raising the total number of recoveries to 1,179. The number of death related to the disease remained at 35.

As many as 15,375 people who had close with COVID-19 patients or entered Viet Nam from pandemic-hit regions are being quarantined nationwide, including 178 in hospitals, 14,319 in state-designated establishments and 878 at their residences.

The country has entered the 88th consecutive day without a single domestic infection of Covid-19 as of 7:00 am on November 16, 2020.

Minister of Health Nguyen Thanh Long urged testing for COVID-19 to be accelerated, warning about very high risks of coronavirus transmissions from other countries as the pandemic situation remains complicated around the world.

The Minister warned about transmission risks posed by illegal entries, adding that 77 people had been caught while trying to illegally enter Viet Nam on November 23 alone. Meanwhile, although the Ministry of Health (MoH) has issued a number of guidelines for quarantine sites, the lack of vigilance remains at several establishments, especially hotels and other civil accommodation facilities.

The minister also emphasized the need to monitor imported food, noting that the MoH has ordered that frozen food shipped from pandemic-hit countries must undergo COVID-19 testing since the coronavirus can survive for a long time.

More than 1,600 Vietnamese nationals repatriated over last week

A total number of 1,638 Vietnamese citizens were brought home from Japan, China, Brunei, Singapore, Australia and the U.S. from November 23-29, according to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The passengers included children under 18 years old, the elderly, the sick, stranded tourists, students who completed their courses and could not have their visas extended, businessmen, intellectuals and other disadvantaged cases. 

Precautious measures were implemented during these flights to prevent transmission of COVID-19.

Right after landing at local airports, all the passengers received check-ups and were sent to concentrated quarantine sites in line with current regulations on COVID-19 responses.

So far, Viet Nam has arranged 210 "rescue" flights to repatriate 59,350 citizens stranded abroad due to COVID-19.

The repatriation of Vietnamese citizens in disadvantaged circumstances abroad will continue to be conducted in line with their wishes, the developments of the COVID-19 pandemic, and quarantine capacity in Viet Nam.

As of late November 29, the nation has gone 88 days without recording new COVID-19 infection case in the community, according to the National Steering Committee for COVID-19 Prevention and Control.

Among 1,343 COVID-19 patients, 1,179 have been given the all-clear from coronavirus so far, while the number of deaths related to the disease remained at 35./. VGP

Kim Loan/Thuy Dung