A health quarantine staff monitors passengers arriving at Mong Cai border gate in Quang Ninh Province. Chinese employees have been barred from returning to Vietnam after Tet holiday due to the coronavirus outbreak

The minister of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs has demanded that the chairpersons of provinces and cities across the country as well as the leaders of the ministry’s subordinate agencies take steps to prevent the spread of the epidemic, reported VietnamPlus.

Companies that have already received Chinese or other foreign workers must report the names of these employees and quickly carry out isolation measures at their workplaces and houses in line with the Health Ministry’s instructions. Also, the companies must monitor the health of these employees for two weeks from the date they arrived in Vietnam.

The ministry’s Department of Employment; provincial departments of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs; and the management boards of industrial, export-processing and economic zones have to temporarily suspend the issuance of new work permits to foreign workers from disease-hit areas.

The Department of Employment must team up with local authorities to collect and update on a daily basis the medical information of foreign workers returning from disease-hit areas, especially Chinese, and promptly report any symptoms associated with the disease to the ministry.

Besides this, the Department of Overseas Labor must keep track of the number of overseas Vietnamese workers in countries that have confirmed cases of coronavirus. It should ask firms to reschedule the departure of local workers to these countries.

Overseas Vietnamese workers should proactively take preventive measures against the disease and strictly comply with the medical requirements of Vietnamese authorities and those of the countries in which they are working.

In related news, the local aviation authority’s ban on flights between Vietnam and China due to the Wuhan coronavirus has left thousands of Chinese people working and travelling in Khanh Hoa Province unable to return to their country, according to VnExpress.

The provincial government has sought solutions from the prime minister to repatriate the 5,300 Chinese stranded in the south-central province, Nguyen Dac Tai, vice chairman of Khanh Hoa, noted in a statement on February 2.

Among them, 520 are Chinese investors and employees legally allowed to work in the province, and the remainder are Chinese tourists, Tai said.

Earlier, on February 1, the Civil Aviation Authority of Vietnam decided to revoke all permits for flights between Vietnam and China.

The province last year welcomed 2.4 million Chinese tourists, accounting for 70% of its total number of international visitors. The provincial tourism authority stopped receiving Chinese visitors from January 28. SGT

Chinese workers isolated in Ha Tinh over virus fears

A group of Chinese workers have been isolated at a hotel in Ha Tinh Province when returning to work at the Formosa Ha Tinh Company after the Tet Holiday.  

Quang Ninh blocks entry of Chinese tourists over nCoV spread threat

The northern province of Quang Ninh suspended entry of all Chinese tourists and self-drive tours from China from January 30 amid the widening threat from a new strain of coronavirus called nCoV.