Nguyen Viet Hai, chief of office of Hai Duong Party Committee, said the province would undergo social distancing for 15 days starting Tuesday as per a government directive on Covid-19 prevention.

The social distancing directive, the same applied nationwide in April last year to stem the spread of Covid-19, calls for people not to go outside except for getting food, medicine or other emergencies; requires a minimum social distance of two meters and bans gatherings of more than two outside of hospitals, offices, schools and public spaces.

Traffic through the province, home to more than two million people, would also be limited during the period, with only vehicles with essential purposes allowed to enter Hai Duong, which is more than an hour drive from Hanoi.

As of Monday, thousands of families in Hai Duong, epicenter of a new Covid-19 wave in Vietnam since late last month, remain quarantined. The province's Chi Linh Town and Cam Giang District are still under lockdown to extinguish local coronavirus outbreaks.

The province has recorded 461 local cases out of the nation's 637 since late last month, making it the biggest coronavirus hotspot in Vietnam at present. The first coronavirus cases of the new wave were recorded in Hai Duong and northern Quang Ninh Province late last month, breaking Vietnam's streak of no community transmissions for nearly two months.