Students at Việt Nam-Germany School in Hà Nội keep distance from each other at an outdoor session on the first day of school re-opening on Monday. — VNA/VNS Photo Thành Đạt

HÀ NỘI Chairman of Hà Nội People’s Committee Nguyễn Đức Chung has called for continued social distancing measures, especially at schools and hospitals, when daily activities have resumed.

He advised people not to gather in big crowds in unnecessary situations and stay alert to respond to any new scenario. The city needs to diagnose people showing signs of disease, quarantine suspected cases and do tests to trace infection sources and end the transmission chain.

All public employees, civil servants, medical workers, teachers and students have been advised to stay at home if they are sick. Those who have fever have to be in quarantine and test for the virus.

At a meeting with the city’s steering committee on COVID-19 prevention and control on Monday, he asked schools to keep distance among teachers and students when the city’s secondary, high schools and universities had been reopened.

He said the COVID-19 pandemic had impacts on the local education sector. The pandemic had forced many schools around the world to shut down while Việt Nam had a large number of students studying overseas in Europe, the US and Australia.

Many countries would not admit overseas students, he said, predicting a trend that Vietnamese students would tend to select domestic universities rather than studying abroad.

The education sector needed to closely monitor the trend and have responsive plans, he said.

On the first days of school reopening on Monday, 224 out of 226 high schools in the city resumed operation. FPT High School which was a quarantine area and Tiền Phong High School located near a village in quarantine will be re-opened on Thursday.

More than 620 secondary schools in the city were also re-opened on Monday. Sixty-six students in Đông Cứu Hamlet, Thường Tín District who are living in a quarantined area will be back to school after the quarantine is lifted on Friday.

Chung ordered continued social distancing measures at hospitals. Only one relative would be allowed to stay at the hospital to take care of each patient.

He asked local hospitals to apply technology in making health check-up appointments to avoid large crowds inside the hospitals. VNS