Panic buying in Vietnam's largest city before tighter Covid-19 lockdown

Hanoi: Vietnam's plan to prohibit residents of Ho Chi Minh City from leaving their homes from Monday has triggered panic buying in the epicentre of its worst coronavirus outbreak.

The scramble for purchases is hurting efforts in the nation's largest city to contain the spiralling COVID-19 outbreak, said the official Vietnam News Agency. Long queues of people were seen outside markets and shelves at supermarkets in Ho Chi Minh City were emptying on Saturday, witnesses and state media said.