Field Hospital No. 10 in HCM City’s Thủ Đức City. HCM City is preparing to set up a treatment facility specifically for patients with the new Omicron variant. No cases with the variant had been confirmed as of Tuesday afternoon. — Photo courtesy of the Ministry of Health

HCM CITY —HCM City is preparing a separate facility solely to treat patients who have the Omicron variant, instead of a facility now housing other COVID patients, Nguyễn Thị Huỳnh Mai, chief of office at the city’s Department of Health, said.

No cases with the Omicron variant in the country had been detected as of Tuesday afternoon.

“The Field Hospital No. 12 at Thủ Đức City is slated to become HCM City’s treatment facility for the Omicron variant. The area is not crowded, and the facility can easily categorise different levels of risks.”

According to Nguyễn Hồng Tâm, deputy operation director of HCM City Centre for Disease Control, the city has been carrying out measures to prevent the Omicron variant from entering the city.

For instance, the city is strictly monitoring entry through Tân Sơn Nhất Airport and Sài Gòn Port, focusing on identifying the COVID variant from people who have tested positive.

People entering the city who have received two vaccine shots and have tested negative for COVID will be placed under concentrated quarantine for seven days, and then will quarantine at home for seven more days.

Regarding illegal entries into the city via roads, health authorities are working with local police to monitor and quarantine such people and identify the COVID variant from those who tested positive for the virus.

Locals are encouraged to follow pandemic preventive measures, and notify local authorities about anyone who has entered the city without making health declarations.

The city is also working on giving locals a booster vaccine shot for people who have received two shots.

Hospitals in HCM City have been instructed on how to restructure themselves to facilitate COVID patients admission, with areas for screening and temporary quarantine.

Local medical centres and mobile medical stations are to be reinforced to ensure timely assistance for COVID patients at home.

The Civil Aviation Authority of Việt Nam has proposed halting all flights, including repatriation flights, from and to 10 African countries, amid fears about the Omicron variant.

The HCM City University Medical Centre has also launched a clinic for post-COVID conditions such as chest pain, lung damage, breathing difficulty, loss of taste and anxiety.

The clinic is for people who were initially asymptomatic but began showing symptoms after they tested negative for the virus; people with lingering symptoms or whose lungs or organs have been damaged; and patients who had severe symptoms when they had the disease.

HCM City has been recording a rising number of daily COVID cases and deaths over the last few weeks. — VNS