The quarantine zone inside the military school of the 7th Military Region in Ho Chi Minh City's District 12 (Photo: Duyen Phan/tuoitre.vn)

Four new cases in HCMC are connected to the Buddha Bar & Grill in District 2, where patients 91, 97, and 98 were infected earlier.

One of the new patients is a Brazilian man, two are South African nationals, and one is a 23-year-old Vietnamese man who works at the Buddha Bar.

Hai Phong and Hanoi each recorded one new case. Both individuals had been studying in Britain, and landed last Friday at Hanoi’s Noi Bai Airport on Vietnam Airlines flight VN54.

Three other patients are Vietnamese people who returned from Spain on Sunday, landing in Hanoi on Aeroflot flight SU290 after transiting in Russia.

Patient 133 is a 66-year-old woman from Lai Chau province who visited Bach Mai Hospital in Hanoi twice this month. On Sunday she developed a fever on her way home.  Patient 134 is a 10-year-old boy from Hanoi who arrived in Hanoi last Wednesday on Aeroflot flight SU290 from Moscow.

All patients are stable and being treated in quarantine areas.

At Tuesday’s online meeting of Ho Chi Minh City’s Steering Committee on Covid-19 Prevention and Control, Secretary of the municipal Party Committee Nguyen Thien Nhan called all agencies and citizens to join the fight.

“In the next two weeks, Ho Chi Minh City should change its daily habits – spending and travelling less – to aid the national effort not to exceed 500 Covid-19 cases. We should draw lessons from other countries. People should not underestimate the disease and  act prudently,” Mr. Nhan said.

Localities nationwide have tightened measures to control border crossings, airports, seaports, and foreigners and Vietnamese citizens arriving from coronavirus hotspots, and promulgated policies to ease the burden of quanratine areas and support people involved in fighting the pandemic.