HCM City prepares 27 hotels as paid quarantine facilities

Illustrative image (Photo: VNA)

HCM City - Twenty-seven hotels will be used as paid quarantine facilities for people required to be quarantined after arriving in Ho Chi Minh City, along with other existing quarantine facilities, according to the municipal Department of Health.

Nguyen Tan Binh, head of the department, said that Vietnam would resume flights to China, Japan, the Republic of Korea, Taiwan, Cambodia and Laos, among others.

Nearly 20,000 people will be expected to enter Vietnam this month, he said.

The department is cooperating with the Department of Tourism to use the 27 hotels for these people. The hotels expect to admit quarantined people and will be assessed to ensure safe criteria in COVID-19 prevention and control by the city's Centre for Diseases Control (CDC) and district health centres.

The hotels will charge fees based on their room vacancies. Quarantined people can choose rooms with suitable fees.

The city is waiting for guidance from the Ministry of Finance on fees for its quarantine areas and those managed by the military.

Vice Chairman of the municipal People’s Committee Le Thanh Liem has instructed the Department of Health and Department of Tourism to check the paid quarantine process at hotels. They should use more hotels if necessary, he said.

Binh said that the city’s quarantine areas and 27 hotels could admit about 3,000 people. On September 12, the CDC said that the two latest COVID-19 patients in the city have been discharged from hospitals. The city has had 77 COVID-19 patients since the beginning of the pandemic. All of them have recovered.

The city currently has 875 people in its quarantine areas and 246 quarantined at home.