Washington couple barred from entering Vietnam as coronavirus lockdown imposed during their flight

Linda and Bob Twist, who are in their 70s and from Washington, left for Hanoi on Friday, March 13 – but on touchdown, they learned the country had imposed a lockdown due to the coronavirus outbreak.

Linda said: “While we were in the air, the Vietnamese government stopped all flights coming in from the UK. When we landed, we were told the country was closed.”

Passengers refused to go through immigration for fear they would be trapped in the country – with Linda saying she and her husband did not want to go into quarantine there for two weeks.

She told the Echo: “We decided we were not going to go through immigration because then we would be in Vietnam and at their mercy. We were all trying to see if we could get a flight home.

“They did not know what to do with us. A lot of them were wearing biohazard suits and all of them were wearing masks. We were given masks.

“We did not know anybody and we weren’t able to speak to our rep because he was through on the other side of immigration.

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“After about 10 hours, we were all taken into an isolation room, where there were about five metal beds. People were sleeping on the floor.

“Fortunately, we were with a really nice bunch of people and we all kept each others’ spirits up. One lady got a travel kettle out of her suitcase.”

The couple made it back to Heathrow early on Sunday, having initially feared they would be stuck in Vietnam.

They were told that flights were fully booked, but then found out at the eleventh hour that they had seats to travel.

After a seven-hour wait in London, Linda and Bob were then put on a flight back to Newcastle.

When arriving home after a mammoth journey, the pair said they “slept for 12 hours”.

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