HCMC – Following the prime minister’s directive over the need to set up at least 10,000 more quarantine rooms, the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism has written to 25 cities and provinces asking them to review and add additional lodging facilities that will serve as quarantine rooms for Covid-19 infection prevention.

The ministry urged HCMC, Hanoi, Khanh Hoa, Ba Ria-Vung Tau, Binh Thuan, Binh Duong, Can Tho and Danang, among others, to provide a list of lodging facilities that had registered to serve as quarantine centers in March and add more accommodation facilities to the list to prepare for the time to come. Many Vietnamese citizens and foreign experts, investors and students are set to enter Vietnam, according to the ministry. The ministry’s new directive is aimed at implementing the prime minister’s directive during a Government meeting on Covid-19 infection prevention on July 10. As many Vietnamese nationals need to return home and foreigners hope to enter the country for work, the prime minister asked the ministries of Health, National Defense and Culture-Sports-Tourism to join hands to expand the network of centralized quarantine areas. A few days ago, the HCMC Department of Tourism wrote to the municipal government proposing the requisitioning of 1,618 rooms from 10 hotels and resorts as paid quarantine rooms for foreigners, who will enter the city for work. As of late March, over 156 hotels, guesthouses and resorts nationwide, with over 14,700 rooms, had been requisitioned as quarantine centers to prevent Covid-19. Some lodging facilities provided free rooms for quarantine purposes, while the prices of rooms at other guesthouses, hotels and resorts used as quarantine centers ranged from VND50,000 to VND3 million per night.

By Dao Loan