A resort in HCM City’s Cần Giờ District receives returnees from overseas who will be under a 14-day quarantine. — Photo dantri.com.vn

HCM CITY — Ten hotels and resorts in HCM City’s coastal district of Cần Giờ are being used as paid quarantine facilities with 486 rooms for people required to be under quarantine, according to the municipal Department of Information and Communications.

Many hotels in the city’s centre areas have registered to be paid quarantine facilities, but the outlying district of Cần Giờ, which has the lowest population density of all districts, has been given priority to be used as a quarantine area, said Từ Lương, deputy director of the department.

As of Sunday, there were only 100 beds available to receive returnees from overseas to spend their mandatory quarantine at hotels and resorts, Lương said.

Room rates, including meals for a 14-day quarantine period at hotels and resorts, are around VNĐ8.4 million (US$357) per person.

Nguyễn Thị Huỳnh Mai, chief of the Department of Health’s office, said hotels in outlying areas have been given priority to prevent the risk of community transmission of infections.

Hotel staff have been trained in ways to prevent infection, while medical staff twice a day visit quarantined people to examine their health and check body temperature, according to Mai.

Anyone coming from abroad to Việt Nam is required to be under mandatory quarantine for 14 days. The number of people under quarantine is expected to soar in coming days, she said.

The city has set up eight quarantine centres managed by the city’s People’s Committee and 24 quarantine centres managed by district-level hospitals, with a total of 23,600 beds, she said. 

The Ministry of Health has released its instructions on the use of hotels as paid quarantine facilities and has asked the people’s committees in cities and provinces to strictly follow them.

Under the instructions, foreigners who are specialists, managers, business owners and skilled workers are given priority to spend their mandatory quarantine at hotels and resorts.

Over the past few days, more than 1,000 returnees from overseas have arrived at Tân Sơn Nhất International Airport in HCM City every day.

As of March 23, more than 7,400 people had been put under mandatory 14-day quarantine at quarantine centres in the city, and more than 900 people are under self-quarantine at home, according to the HCM City Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (HCDC).

As of March 23, there were 27 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the city, with all in stable health condition, according to the HCDC. — VNS