Vietnam to test entire city amid new variant fears

(FASTNEWS | VIETNAM) – Vietnam hopes to tackle a new Covid outbreak by testing the entire population of Ho Chi Minh City and introducing new social distancing measures.

The efforts come in response to a new cluster linked to a religious mission.

Vietnam has had relative success in controlling the virus but cases have been rising over the past weeks.

Over the weekend, officials warned of a new “very dangerous” hybrid variant discovered in the country.

The government says the new variant combines features of the variants first identified in India and the UK, and is easily transmissible by air.

Overall, the country has registered just over 7,000 infections and 47 deaths, but the latest spike accounts for more than half of the total number of cases.

The latest outbreak in Ho Chi Minh City is centred around a Christian mission which had seen at least 125 positive cases, and accounts for most of the city’s infections.

Those living in the vicinity of the cluster have already been tested and are in lockdown.

Officials now plan to test the rest of Ho Chi Minh City’s 13 million people.

At a testing rate of 100,000 per day, the effort would take authorities more than four months to complete.