Earlier, on November 28, the ministry proposed the Government should suspend flights to/from South Africa, Botswana, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Eswatini, Lesotho, and Mozambique, and halt entry of arrivals with travel record to these countries.  

The CAAV reported that Viet Nam’s border remains largely closed, except for occasional repatriation flights to bring Vietnamese overseas home and flights arranged under pilot tourism reopening program to five selected destinations, namely Da Nang city, Quang Ninh, Quang Nam, Khanh Hoa, and Kien Giang provinces. 

All of these flights required the agreement from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Health, Ministry of Transport, Ministry of National Defense, and Ministry of Public Security.

On November 30, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh tasked the Ministry of Health to closely monitor and provide update on evolution of COVID-19 variant Omicron in order to design proper and effective response measures.

The ministry directed its affiliates to strengthen surveillance of the COVID-19 pandemic in order to early detect unusual signs of COVID-19 outbreaks. At the same time, the Institutes of Hygiene and Epidemiology and Pasteur Institutes were asked to proactively carry out genetic sequencing of suspected new mutant infections, especially those with epidemiological history from South African countries.

So far, Viet Nam has yet detected any case of Omicron transmission.  

The CAAV has recently proposed the resumption of normal operations on all domestic routes from the beginning of 2022./.