The facility, set up together with the military’s Hanoi High Command, is within the hospital itself and has eight tents and 64 beds.

Duong Duc Hung, deputy director of Bach Mai, said the field hospital has been set up as a precautionary step since the Lunar New Year festival is just days away and the pandemic remains unpredictable.

It is equipped with X-ray, ultrasound and ECG machines.

People with coronavirus symptoms like cough, fever and breathing difficulty would be screened and isolated, preventing possible contamination of other areas in the hospital, he said.

If there is a surge in the case load and the National Hospital for Tropical Diseases, one of the frontline hospitals in the Covid-19 fight, cannot cope, the field hospital would lend a hand, he said.

"But I hope the field hospital will never need to be used."

Bach Mai had put up a similar field hospital in March last year when it was locked down after briefly becoming a Covid-19 hotspot.

It also helped the northern Dien Bien and Hai Duong provinces erect field hospitals with hundreds of beds.

Since late January there has been a new wave of Covid-19 infections with 470 cases recorded in 12 cities and provinces.

The country’s tally so far is 2,053.