It may take months to contain the situation in the area.
HANOI (ANTARA) – Vietnam will from Monday extend strict restrictions on movement in Ho Chi Minh City and 18 other cities and provinces across the southern region for another two weeks to help fight its worst COVID-19 outbreak, the government said.
Having managed to contain the virus for most of the pandemic, Vietnam is facing a rapid spread of infection that has led to restrictions on movement in a third of the country.
Vietnam has recorded a total of 145,000 cases and 1,306 deaths, 85 percent of which were recorded over the past month.
“Ho Chi Minh City authorities and other places should urge citizens to stay where they are and strictly follow restrictions,” a government statement said on Saturday.
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The Southeast Asian nation reported 8,624 new infections as of Saturday evening, with most of the confirmed cases detected in the south, especially Ho Chi Minh City where social distancing measures have been in place since May 31.
“Implementation of restrictions in the region is to create seat belts around Ho Chi Minh City and not allow the epidemic to spread further,” said Vu Duc Dam, deputy prime minister and head of the COVID-19 task force.
“It may take months to contain the situation in the area.”
Also read: COVID cases soar, Vietnam’s biggest cities tighten restrictions
Ho Chi Minh City is currently the epicenter of Vietnam’s earthquake, accounting for 64 percent of the country’s total infections.
Ho Chi Minh recorded a death toll from COVID-19 infection on June 2, but the total death toll from COVID-19 reached 1,164 as of Saturday, data from the Ho Chi Minh City Center for Disease Control and Prevention showed.
The central coastal city of Danang has also imposed restrictions on movement from Saturday until further notice.
In the capital Hanoi, in the north, where a lockdown order is due to expire next weekend, authorities are considering extending restrictions.
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Vietnam’s Ministry of Health issued an urgent call on Friday to private hospitals to treat COVID-19 patients as state hospitals have experienced additional capacity.
The re-emergence of the complex cluster of viruses has prompted calls for governments to speed up vaccinations.
The government’s inoculation campaign relies heavily on the AstraZeneca vaccine.
Vietnam received the first one million doses of Sinopharm of five million doses ordered from China on Saturday, according to documents from Ho Chi Minh authorities.
The remaining four million doses will arrive in August.
Vietnam has a population of 98 million and has so far delivered more than 5.9 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine, but only about 589,000 people have been fully inoculated.
Source: Reuters
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Penerjemah: Aziz Kurmala
Editor: Mulyo Sunyoto
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