HCMC – During a meeting between the Ministry of Transport (MoT), Deputy Prime Minister Pham Binh Minh and the National Steering Committee for Covid-19 Prevention and Control on September 18, MoT stressed that there are still many problems that need to be resolved before reopening international flights to transport passengers to Vietnam.
The Civil Aviation Administration of Vietnam (under MoT) has asked local airlines to reopen international passenger flights from September 21. However, it was concluded at the meeting that reopening should wait until the aviation authorities of Korea, Japan, China and Taiwan better clarify regulations involving immigration, quarantine, mandatory medical requirements and accommodation, among others.
Based on the regulations as well as ideas proposed by local competent authorities, MoT suggested several solutions.
One of them was to establish an action team in charge of managing immigration and quarantine, which will be led by Acting Minister of Health Nguyen Thanh Long, with members from the ministries of National Defense, Foreign Affairs, Transport and some local governments.
MoT also asked Deputy Prime Minister Pham Binh Minh and the National Steering Committee for Covid-19 Prevention and Control to instruct the Ministry of Health to urgently develop “Guidance on supervising and testing of SARS-CoV-2 for people entering Vietnam”, apart from how to receive, isolate and take Covid-19 samples for testing at the airports.
The Ministry of Health must guide local authorities on how to receive passengers at airports and take them to quarantine centers.
Besides, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs also asked overseas embassies to accurately state the mandatory conditions required for passengers entering Vietnam.
The Ministry of Finance should be responsible for collecting quarantine and testing fees, while the Ministry of Defense needs to strengthen the capacity of quarantine facilities.
The People’s Committees of Hanoi, HCMC, Can Tho and neighboring localities are asked to publicly announce the list of hotels being used as quarantine centers, including room occupancy, rates, etc.
