South Asian nation Vietnam has ordered the evacuation of 80,000 people from the coastal city of Danang, one of the popular tourist and MICE location, after three residents there tested positive for this deadly coronavirus.
The government of Vietnam said that this evacuation would take four days and involve flights chartered to 11 different Vietnamese cities.
Vietnam, which has been praised for its pandemic response after reporting just 400 cases and no deaths, went back on high alert at the weekend as it confirmed its first local infections since April, all in the popular tourism destination of Danang.
An aggressive and widespread testing regime plus a strict quarantine had helped the South-East Asian nation almost eradicate Covid-19 within its borders, but the authorities are now grappling with its first internal infections for months.
Although foreign tourists are still barred from entering the country, there has been a surge of domestic travel as the Vietnamese take advantage of discounted flights and hotel deals.
Anyone who had recently returned home from a break in Danang would be required to quarantine at home for 14 days, the health ministry has said.
In addition, the prime minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc has also ordered police to step up a crackdown on illegal immigration. It is not clear if the new Danang cases are connected to people entering Vietnam secretly but Vietnamese state media said on Sunday police had arrested a Chinese man accused of running a gang which smuggled people into the country from China.
On Monday, the government announced more than 1,500 people had been caught illegally crossing the border from China into Ha Giang province in Vietnam since May. Most of those caught were Vietnamese citizens and had been sent into quarantine.
