On Saturday, the workers lined up at maintaining a safe distance from each other, wearing protective clothing and carrying some personal belongings. Dozens of buses were dispatched to take them to centralized isolation facilities in Viet Yen District.

Before leaving, all the employees of local industrial parks, had their samples taken for Covid-19 testing.

Nguyen Van Phuong, chairman of Viet Yen District, said it would reduce the density of workers gathered at one place and limit the chance of spreading infection.

There are still 3,000 people, including 2,000 workers, allowed to stay in Nui Hieu. They had their samples taken for coronavirus testing five times and all showed negative results. Local authorities have been disinfecting rows of rented apartments to limit the risk of the virus spreading further.

This is the third time in the last 10 days that local authorities have transferred factory workers from Nui Hieu to centralized quarantine facilities.

Nui Hieu Village, surrounded by industrial parks and factories, is home to 9,000 people, more than 8,000 of them being workers who have rented apartments. The Health Ministry has identified the village as the pandemic epicenter of Bac Giang Province, home to several industrial parks that house, among others, several foreign tech giants.

Bac Giang has recorded 3,058 infections in the new wave that started April 27, mostly industrial park workers.