The northern port city of Hai Phong has moved to implement mandatory medical isolation on both local citizens and foreign nationals who have recently arrived from abroad, with the regulations including all countries, regardless of if they’ve been hit by the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic or not.

Hai Phong quarantines all recent arrivals from abroad

This policy comes after the city’s leaders requested that all district authorities, along with the management board of the Hai Phong Economic Zone, put in place measures to pick up all recent arrivals from other countries at Cat Bi International Airport before immediately transferring them to the city’s centralised isolation areas.

Previously, the Hai Phong Department of Health had reported that four Vietnamese citizens from pandemic hit countries, including Iran and Indonesia, had arrived on two separate flights from Ho Chi Minh City to the northern city on the evening of March 16. Signs of the virus were discovered when each of the cases recorded symptoms of fever with their respective temperatures being above 37.4 degrees Celsius.

This change in regulation has led Hai Phong to collaborate with localities in a bid to strictly monitor any passengers who had been on either of these two flights, whilst ordering drastic measures to be taken in line with regulations set by the Ministry of Health to prevent the further spread of the disease.

Positive news came out of the port city on March 17 when it was confirmed that four cases had tested negative for the COVID-19 for the first time, while an additional eight other suspected cases had also the tested negative for the virus.

At present, a total of 158 out of 159 samples which have been taken from suspected cases have come back negative for the COVID-19.