Around 3,800 people linking to religious mission cluster tested

The Ho Chi Minh City Center for Disease Control confirmed 44 more domestic coronavirus cases yesterday, all linking to the religious mission cluster that emerged a day earlier.

At noon, more than 30 doctors and nurses from the Preventive Medicine Center in District 12 and the Hospital of Traditional Medicine in the city took samples for testing for more than 1,100 officials, engineers, and employees at the QZSC 9 building and an annex building located in Quang Trung Software Park in Tan Chanh Hiep Ward.

By 4 PM, doctors and nurses had collected over 800 samples for testing.

A 25- year-old employee working on the 5th floor of the QZSC building said that everyone was informed about one case of Covid-19 infection relating to the religious mission. He and his colleagues in the building were worried but willing to cooperate with medical staff to take samples for testing.

At 5 PM on the same day, local medical workers handled test-and-trace samples from 924 residents of block A2 at Moscow Tower apartment in Tan Thoi Nhat Ward.

Dr. Vu Duc Dien, Head of Infection Division of the Preventive Medicine Center in District 12, said that from 9 AM, health staffs started taking samples for testing but some people couldn’t be present because they had to go to work early; therefore, collection of samples at block A2 lasted until 8 PM.

This morning, the Ho Chi Minh City Center for Disease Control said that 10 more Covid-10 suspected cases were recorded. Of ten cases, eight suspected cases linked to the religious mission, raising the number of infections in this cluster to 44 while two cases detected during screening at Hoan My Hospital, without a clear source of infection. The two are husband and wife and the wife is 10 weeks pregnant.

The Ministry of Health this morning said that within the past 12 hours, the country had 40 more Covid-19 cases in the northern provinces of Bac Giang (30), Lang Son (8), Thai Binh (1), the Mekong Delta Province of Long An (1), taking the total cases to 6.356.