Al Jazeera :
Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam – Tens of thousands of Vietnamese who once made a living in Ho Chi Minh City, the country’s COVID-19 epicentre, are returning to their home provinces in desperation after authorities lifted a strict stay-at-home order last week, raising fears that the highly infectious Delta variant could spread in parts of the country where vaccination rates remain low.
The mass exodus, which began on Friday, has left local officials in the Mekong Delta region and the Central Highlands scrambling to track and quarantine the returnees, many of whom had weathered months of lockdown without work or sufficient food in Ho Chi Minh City and its surrounding provinces.
So far, at least 200 positive cases have been found among the 160,000 people who have returned to their home provinces, the Zing News website reported on Tuesday.
“It is difficult because he still needs some money to pay for food for his kids as well,” Huyen said.
“It is a very sad story.”
