Vietnam is poised to welcome international travellers on Tuesday but a lack of clarity on the rules of a wider reopening while the coronavirus is still rampaging is causing confusion.
It remains unclear what kind of quarantine and testing rules the Southeast Asian nation will impose on foreign visitors when it reopens after a two-year closure. It does not help that
Vietnam has been seeing a surge, with daily cases averaging about 165,000 in the past week through March 14.
The tourism resumption was announced on February 17 with the government saying it would lift most curbs starting March 15 yet until now, the government has not issued specific guidelines.
It said a month ago that tourists must present proof of being vaccinated or having recovered from Covid-19 with a negative test result; and once landed in Vietnam, must undergo 24 hours of self-quarantine.
In November, the country started allowing international travellers on group tours and only to select destinations provided they were vaccinated or have recovered from the virus, and can show a negative test taken in the past 72 hours or less.
While the tourism ministry favoured a quarantine-free broad reopening, the health ministry on March 1 proposed ordering tourists to undergo a three-day self-isolation.
A day before the reopening, Deputy Premier Vu Duc Dam directed the health ministry to “promptly revise regulations and requirements” for foreign tourists and send the proposal to the tourism ministry by the end of March 14. Still, there isn’t a guidance available on government websites.
The confusion does not help Vietnam’s travel industry, Pham Ha, chief executive of Hanoi-based tour operator Lux Group, wrote in a March 9 opinion piece in VnExpress International.
Tourism accounted for 9.2 per cent of GDP in 2019, rising from a 6.3 per cent contribution in 2015, according to government data. Vietnam aims to host 18 million foreign travellers by 2026, matching the number of guests pre-pandemic, according to a report by Tuoi Tre.
Australia on Tuesday said it would lift its entry ban for international cruise ships next month, effectively ending all major Covid-related travel bans after two years and boosting a tourism industry hit hard by the pandemic restrictions.
Australia banned the entry of cruise ships in March 2020, when they were the source of about 20 per cent of the country’s early coronavirus infections. The vessels became a flashpoint in its pandemic response after symptomatic passengers were allowed to disembark in Sydney, many of whom later tested positive.
The federal government said it would not renew the current ban beyond April 17 as the country begins to live with the coronavirus after reaching higher vaccination levels. Last month, Australia fully reopened its airports to vaccinated international travellers.
Before the pandemic, Australia welcomed more than 600,000 cruise ship passengers across its ports from almost 350 vessels in 2019, according to official data, a major source of revenue for the country’s A$60 billion (US$43 billion) tourism industry.
“I can’t wait to see our cruise terminals once again filled with arriving international passengers, getting this important industry shipshape and back out on the water once more,” Minister for Home Affairs Karen Andrews said in a statement.
The further ease in restrictions come amid the threat from the highly contagious BA.2 sub-variant of the Omicron coronavirus strain, which authorities have warned could double daily infections in the next four to six weeks.
Despite calls from health experts to reintroduce some curbs, including making masks mandatory in indoor venues, Prime Minister Scott Morrison over the weekend said the country was ready to live with Covid-19 as though it were the common flu.
More than 31,000 new cases and 21 deaths have been reported by Tuesday afternoon, with South Australia and the Northern Territory due to report. Australia’s total tally stands at just over 3.2 million confirmed cases and 5,612 deaths.
South Korea had its deadliest day yet of the pandemic on Tuesday, with 293 deaths reported in the latest 24 hours, as the country grapples with a record surge in coronavirus infections driven by the fast-moving Omicron variant.
The 1,196 virus patients in serious or critical conditions were also a new high. Health officials said the country’s medical response remains stable following efforts to expand resources, with more than 30 per cent of intensive care units designated for Covid-19 treatment still available.
But the strain on the hospital system is expected to increase in coming weeks, considering the time lags between infections, hospitalisation and deaths.
“We anticipate the number of (serious or critical cases) to grow to around 2,000. We are preparing our medical response for that,” senior Health Ministry official Park Hyang said during a briefing.
South Korea has reported a daily average of around 337,000 new cases in the past seven days, including 362,283 on Tuesday, representing more than an 80-fold increase from levels seen in mid-January, when Omicron emerged as the dominant strain. The country’s caseload is now over 7.2 million, with 6.4 million added since February.
Park said because of high vaccination rates, the country has so far weathered the Omicron surge with lower levels of fatalities than what was seen in the US and Europe, which was hit by the variant earlier. More than 62 per cent of South Koreans have received booster shots.
The country so far has 17.6 Covid-19 deaths per 100,000 people, compared to 285.5 deaths in the US and 237.5 in Britain, according to the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency.
The Omicron variant has forced South Korea to abandon a stringent Covid-19 response based on mass laboratory tests, aggressive contact tracing and quarantines to focus limited medical resources on priority groups, including people 60 and older and those with pre-existing medical conditions. The country will also begin a vaccine roll-out for children between the ages of 5 and 11 later this month.
More than 1.6 million virus carriers with mild or moderate symptoms have been asked to isolate at home to save hospital space, the KDCA said.
India will start administering Covid-19 vaccinations to 12- to 14-year-olds from Wednesday, the country’s health ministry said, as schools reopen across the country with standard restrictions amid a significant fall in cases.
The government also decided to remove the condition of comorbidity for people above 60 years to receive a booster shot, the ministry said in a statement.
India has so far been vaccinating children aged 15 and above. According to government figures, more than 90 million children aged between 15 and 17 have been inoculated, mainly using Bharat Biotech’s home-grown shot Covaxin.
India’s third wave of Covid-19 cases driven by the Omicron variant has receded, with the country reporting 2,503 infections on Monday compared to more than 300,000 in late January.
The health ministry said children in the age group of 12 to 14 years would be inoculated using vaccine maker Biological E. Ltd’s Corbevax, which received an emergency use approval in February for 12- to 18-year-olds.
Japan is considering raising the daily cap on overseas arrivals to 10,000 from the current 7,000 starting in April, further easing its Covid-19 border controls, government sources said on Tuesday.
Prime Minister Fumio Kishida has said the government would relax the border control measures, criticised as being too strict, in stages, taking into account the infection situation at home and abroad and border control steps implemented by other nations.
Reporting by Bloomberg, Reuters, AP, Kyodo
Michelle Hà Bùi
Source: South China Morning Post
