Vietnam has detected new strain of coronavirus and imposed restrictions due to its speed of spread

After announcing the appearance of a new local variant of the coronavirus responsible for a new wave of infections, Vietnam this Sunday announced new restrictions that will come into effect Monday at 00:00 to stop the recurrence of cases in Ho Chi Minh, the most populous city in the country.

The new hybrid variety of COVID-19, as the Vietnamese Minister of Health warned, Nguyen Thanh Long, consists of traces of Indian and English strains and it spreads much faster in the air than other strains.

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Long said this variant “is responsible for the new wave of infections” in the country, which started about a month ago. So far, this local strain has registered 3,595 new cases in 33 cities and provinces. This level of contagion means almost half of the total number of cases reported by the country since the start of the pandemic, with 7,107 infections and 47 deaths.

The Vietnamese variant was detected during a study of the genome sequence of the virus in sick people in Indochina, the mainland region of Southeast Asia.

The minister explained that “the characteristic of this strain is that it spreads quickly in the air. The concentration of virus in throat fluid increases rapidly and spreads with great force the surrounding environment, ”he stressed.

New closures and restrictions

Given this panorama and the growth of cases, the authorities have announced a series of measures that will take effect from the first hour of Monday in Ho Chi Minh, ex-Saigon. The measures limit the number of indoor and outdoor meetings. They will be in effect for at least two weeks, said Governor Nguyen Thanh Phong, as quoted by the VnExpress.

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The leader was particularly concerned about a source of contagion detected in a religious center in the Go Vap district, north of the city. In this part of the district, the restrictions will be stricter. For example, residents will not be allowed to leave their homes if it is not necessary.

In addition, the closure of cafes, restaurants, hairdressers and massage parlors, as well as tourist and religious places in various parts of the country, has been ordered.

Containment and vaccines

In a year and a half since the pandemic, Vietnam had had great success in containing the virus, but the arrival of this new variant has put health authorities on alert. Same, the slowness of the vaccination campaign is worrying, since then, just over a million Vietnamese have been vaccinated out of a population of 96 million.

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With his usual secret he reported EFE, the Communist regime in Hanoi confined itself to pointing out the supply problems on the international market to justify its slowness in the acquisition of vaccines.

Currently, the country has around 2 million doses of the Oxford / AstraZeneca vaccine, but the purchase of over 30 million doses of the Pfizer vaccine has been announced. The government is also in talks with Russia to produce Sputnik V and is working on the development of its own vaccine.