A residential apartment building on Đặng Thai Mai Street, Tây Hồ District, was put under lockdown. — VNA/VNS Photo Hoàng Hiếu

HÀ NỘI — The Hà Nội Centre for Diseases Control (CDC) announced five community cases on Friday morning, including three foreigners.

One is a 55-year-old Korean man who works at Samon Tech Company in Nam An Khánh Commune, Hoài Đức District. He tested positive at the Menicar Clinic. He received his second COVID-19 vaccine on September 13 and was planning on returning to Korea.

The second community case is a 51-year-old Japanese male, staying in Trúc Bạch Ward, Ba Đình District. He works at Toyota Tsusho Company in Liễu Giai Ward, Ba Đình District.

The final community case among the foreign community is a Japanese man, 31 years old, staying in Quảng An Ward, Tây Hồ District. He tested positive for COVID-19 on Thursday.

The other two community cases are Vietnamese nationals. One was a 41-year-old man from Xuân Phương Commune, Nam Từ Liêm District, who often travelled to Việt Trì City in the northern province of Phú Thọ. He tested negative for COVID-19 on September 12 when he got the second COVID-19 vaccine jab.

On September 21, he took a quick COVID-19 test in order to get a permit to travel to Phú Thọ. On September 30 he tested positive for COVID-19 at Hà Nội's Medlatec Hospital.

The other Vietnamese positive case is a 35-year-old man in CT4A, Mễ Trì Thượng, Nam Từ Liêm District. He is a customer care officer at the Agribank at 135 Lạc Long Quân, Cầu Giấy District. He also received his second COVID-19 vaccination in September. 

On Wednesday, he took a COVID-19 test to get a permit to travel out of the city and tested positive. 

On Thursday evening, CDC Hà Nội confirmed two other community cases – a caregiver at Việt Đức Hospital and a food seller/delivery man at the hospital gate.

Three provinces, Hà Tĩnh, Nam Định and Hưng Yên, have reported a total of five COVID-19 cases related to the Việt Đức Hospital in the last few days.

A total of 1,443 testing samples have been taken from patients’ caregivers and staff working at Việt Đức Hospital’s building D where the community COVID-19 case was found. As of Friday noon, all samples have come back negative.

Since April 29 when the fourth wave of COVID-19 pandemic hit Việt Nam, Hà Nội has reported 3,981 cases. 1,608 of those cases have been found in the community.

Trương Quang Việt, vice director of CDC Hà Nội, said that as Hà Nội relaxed social distancing measures, the city must accept the risk of new community cases and even new COVID-19 clusters, and prepare appropriately. 

“Depending on certain developments of the pandemic, the authority will have specific responses,” he said.

After two-month social distancing, on September 21 Hà Nội's authorities decided to relax social distancing measures, allowing people to go out without travel permits.

Earlier, the Secretariat of the city Party Committee Đinh Tiến Dũng said that the city would take flexible but cautious moves to ensure disease prevention and control would be managed, as well as economic recovery. —  VNS