Thirty four new community COVID-19 infections have been recorded in northern Vietnam, the Ministry of Healthy confirmed Saturday morning.
Two of them are from Quang NinhProvince and the remaining 32 from Hai Duong Province, raising the current outbreak tally to 180 and bringing the total number of cases in the country to 1739.
Since community transmissions reemerged in the nation on Thursday after a streak of 55 clean days, Hai Duong has recorded 157 cases and Quang Ninh 20, making them the biggest Covid-19 hotspots.
Infections have then spread to the neighboring Hai Phong City and Bac Ninh Province, as well as Hanoi, which is more than one hour from Hai Duong, with 180 cases in total.
The sources of transmissions of the outbreak have not been identified, with the first patients confirmed being a man working at Van Don International Airport and a woman working at Vietnam Poyun Electronics Co. Ltd in Chi Linh Town of Hai Duong.
As the speed of transmission has been proved to be the fastest ever since the pandemic broke out in Vietnam, health experts are analyzing the virus strains on the first two patients based on the theory that it could be the U.K. variant, which is 70 percent more transmissible compared to previous strains.
On late Friday night, Ho Chi Minh City also reported a “suspected case” who had come into close contact with a person that has been confirmed a Covid-19 patient in Hai Duong.
The person in HCMC flew into the city on Vietnam Airlines flight VN213 on January 28 that took off at Hanoi’s Noi Bai Airport. Once reaching HCMC and being aware of the latest outbreak, the passenger has come to the authorities to report the situation.
So far, 12 people that had contacted this passenger have been quarantined as well and their first coronavirus tests came back negative.
By Saturday morning, Vietnam has registered 1,739 cases and 253 are active.
The pandemic has infected more than 102.5 million people worldwide, killing more than 2.2 million, according to VNExpress.
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