This year, Tet Festival falls in late January (Photo: VNA)

Hanoi – Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh has signed a dispatch directing ministers, heads of ministerial-level and State agencies, and chairmen of People’s Committees of centrally-run cities and provinces to strengthen measures to prevent the spreading of COVID-19 during the upcoming Lunar New Year (Tet) Festival and the festive season of 2023.

In the document, the PM underlined that the pandemic is still developing unpredictably with the continuously appearance of new variants and sub-variants of SARS-CoV-2, and the decreasing effectiveness of vaccines.

Meanwhile, the change in seasons and the easing of pandemic prevention and control policies in some countries are likely to increase the risk of a surge of COVID-19 cases in the time to come, during the Tet Festival and Spring of 2023.

In order to strengthen the pandemic prevention and control measures during trade and tourism activities in the festive festival in the first months of 2023 and continue to promote the socio-economic development at the same time, the PM requested ministries, sectors and localities to strictly implement the Politburo’s directive on the organisation of Tet Festival and the PM’s directive on the strengthening of pandemic control measures during the festival, as well as the Government’s resolution on pandemic prevention and fight.

The Ministry of Health was asked to keep a close eye on the domestic and international pandemic situation, thus giving timely guidelines and coordination with ministries, sectors and localities in the pandemic fight, while working with localities to direct the implementation of measures to prevent COVID-19 and seasonal diseases, promptly stamping out outbreaks, and promoting COVID-19 vaccination activities.

The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism was requested to work with the Ministry of Health and the People’s Committees of localities to direct tourism businesses to ensure safety for tourists and locals.

The PM also instructed localities to strengthening the monitoring of people arriving from areas with pandemic outbreaks and localities where new COVID-19 variants are found, while keeping a close eye on the community and medical facilities to early detect the appearance of new SARS-CoV-2 variants. They were also requested to continue speeding up COVID-19 vaccination among all eligible groups.