HANOI (Reuters) – Vietnam is restricting flights home from now until the end of the lunar New Year in mid-February, when large gatherings are expected indoors to reduce coronavirus risks, the country’s prime minister said.
With a new COVID-19 variant spreading around the world and the coming lunar New Year, the country’s most important holiday, only the necessary flights approved by the Ministry of Health, Foreign Affairs, Defense, Public Safety and Transport was allowed to enter the country, Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc said.
After the lunar new year, which falls on February 10-16, the Department of Transportation will investigate the possibility of resuming international flights, Phuc added.
Vietnam has suspended all incoming international commercial flights since the end of March, but the government has undertaken repatriation flights to bring home Vietnamese citizens trapped abroad amid the pandemic.
Some special flights with foreign experts and investors were allowed to fly to Vietnam. All people entering the country must spend 14 days in quarantine.
The country on Tuesday suspended incoming flights from countries with new COVID-19 variants, initially Britain and South Africa.
Thanks to strict quarantine and detection measures, Vietnam performed much better than many countries, with a total of 1,513 coronavirus infections and 35 deaths. It took 38 days with no local transfer.
(Reporting by Phuong Nguyen; Edited by Lincoln Feast.)