NDO/VNA - Over 20 hotels in Ho Chi Minh City have offered free accommodation and meals to medical workers involving in the fight against COVID-19 pandemic, with about 50,000 room nights, reported the municipal Tourism Department on July 19.

Hundreds of other hotels currently serving as quarantine facilities also joined hands in the effort by providing free stay or discounts of 30-70 percent for quarantined people in financial difficulty.

Many others are gradually operating “community hotel” model for the disadvantaged.

Travel companies deployed hundreds of vehicles to carry medical staff, COVID-19 patients and suspected cases to quarantine facilities, and vaccines.

The municipal tourism sector has partnered up with domestic firms to offer daily necessities and medical supplies to hospitals, medical stations and those in difficult circumstance in quarantine facilities. Many tourist and travel companies also gave support to volunteers who are collecting samples for COVID-19 testing and vaccination campaign.

Several hotels in the city cooked and provided thousands of meals for the poor in isolated areas and frontline forces.

Ho Chi Minh City is currently the largest hotspot of COVID-19 in the country, with thousands of new cases detected a day.