After nearly a month of implementing a high level of social distancing, starting today, September 16, 2021, the authorities of Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City have begun to gradually relax several related epidemic prevention and control measures related to the lives of the people.
According to Vietnam’s state-controlled media, on September 15, Chairman of Hanoi’s People’s Committee Chu Ngoc Anh sent an official dispatch to adjust a number of measures to prevent and control the Covid-19 epidemic in the city, thereby allowing, from 12:00 am of September 16, the city will reopen some business activities: stationery, books, equipment, school supplies; vehicle repair services, electronics, refrigeration and home appliances; Food and beverage service (only take-out) and close before 9pm daily.
These easing measures are only applied to areas where there have been no cases of infection in the community since September 3. From September 3, Hanoi has divided epidemic risk into 3 colors red (extreme risk), orange (high risk) and green (low risk).
The movement of people in the city in recent days is strictly controlled according to the road permits issued to a number of specific groups of people. The roads connecting the areas are strictly blocked, causing many inadequacies for activities in the city.
Today, city leaders also said that they will consider stopping the inspection of road permits for people in 19 districts that are assessed as being in the “new normal” state.
Currently, the city has one very high-risk district (Thanh Xuan) and two high-risk districts (Hoang Mai, Dong Da), this number was 11 districts two weeks ago, according to a report by the Ha Noi Health Department.
Ho Chi Minh City, the center of the country’s epidemic since the beginning of the 4th outbreak until now, today is the first day of easing some activities, although the city continues to apply the distance according to Directive 16 of the Government for 2 more weeks after September 15th. After 25 days of tightening, today delivery people are permitted to go back to work, some business services are also allowed to reopen. People in District 7, Cu Chi and Can Gio districts began to be allowed to go to the market, once a week. However, in many streets, the traffic control points are still in operation.
Regarding the epidemic situation, according to the official data of the Ministry of Health, as of yesterday evening, Vietnam still recorded 10,583 new infections in 34 provinces and cities and 250 deaths. Ho Chi Minh City still leads with over 5,000 new infections and 189 deaths. Hanoi recorded 14 new infections.
More than 30 million people get at least one dose of Covid-19 vaccine
According to data from the Vietnam National Immunization Portal, as of September 15, 2021, more than 31 million doses of the Covid-19 vaccine have been given to people, which means nearly one-third of Vietnam’s populations have been vaccinated with at least one dose. For 6 consecutive days (from September 9 to 14), more than 1 million injections were injected every day.
To date, Ho Chi Minh City has used 7.4 million doses of the vaccine, equivalent to 100% of the city’s vaccinated age population (over 18 years old), of which about 900,000 people have completed the vaccination for second injection. About 4.4 million doses of the vaccine have been used in Hanoi (accounting for 77% of the city’s population), of which more than 550 thousand people have completed the second injection.
So far, Vietnam has received a total of nearly 37 million doses of the Covid-19 vaccine, with nearly 12 million doses through the COVAX program, according to an announcement by Vietnam’s Ministry of Health on September 14. Health Minister Nguyen Thanh Long said that Vietnam will receive more than 103 million more vaccine doses by the end of this year (22.8 million doses in September; 31.2 million in October, 23.9 million in November, and 25.5 million in December).
Yesterday, representatives of the French and Italian governments held a ceremony to hand over a total of 1.47 million doses of the Covid-19 vaccine to Vietnam at the headquarters of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Hanoi. France donated 670,000 doses of AstraZeneca vaccine to Vietnam and Italy 800,000 million doses of the same vaccine. Both are through the United Nations COVAX global vaccine sharing program. Among European Union members, France and Italy are two of the largest donors to the COVAX initiative.
Thoibao.de (Translated)
https://www.rfi.fr/vi/vi%E1%BB%87t-nam/20210916-vietnam-covid19-phong-toa-hanoi-tp-hochiminh
