The proposal, issued in a document on traveling drawn up by Director of the Ho Chi Minh City police department Le Hong Nam, said government staff may go to work between 6:30 a.m.-8 a.m. and go home at 4:30 p.m.-6 p.m.

If one needs to go out for official purposes either outside of the aforementioned timeframes or approved itineraries, they may use existing travel papers to do so. If they need to go out because their jobs require them to do so, municipal police would consider giving them new travel papers.

The municipal police department has also requested authorities to send employee lists to the municipal Department of Home Affairs so police could update information on the national database. Government workers would also need to medically declare themselves via the VNEID application operated by the Ministry of Public Security before going out.

Police would check workers’ credentials like company IDs or travel itineraries on the road. Staff would also need to be fully vaccinated, while their families must not live within locked down areas.

Previously on Sept. 16, HCMC People’s Committee requested police to provide government workers either travel papers or QR codes to commute amid the pandemic.

HCMC, epicenter of the fourth coronavirus outbreak, has recorded 353,655 local Covid-19 cases so far in the new wave. Around 6.8 million people in the city have received at least one Covid-19 vaccine shot, while around 2.1 million have been fully immunized.

The city has been working on a plan to gradually reopen and allow fully vaccinated people to go out.