Covid-19 situation:

Vietnam Nationwide

• On Sep 18, Vietnam’s legislature has decided to spend VND 2.652 trillion, or nearly US$116 million, to purchase 20 million Pfizer-BioNTech doses to administer to children from 12 to 17 years old.
• Vietnamese State President Nguyen Xuan Phuc held talks with First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba Central Committee and President of Cuba Miguel Díaz Canel in Havana on Sep 19, as part of his official visit from Sep 18 to 20. The Vietnamese government on Sep 20 issued a resolution on the purchase of 10 million doses of Abdala COVID-19 vaccine developed by Cuba’s Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology.
• Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh asked the COVAX Facility to quickly allocate COVID-19 vaccines to Vietnam during a teleconference with its Office Managing Director Aurélia Nguyen on Sep 20.
• The Vietnamese Ministry of Health has allowed the administration in each locality to freely decide whether to shorten the interval between two shots of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine.
• The National Ethics Committee in Biomedical Research on Saturday approved the mid-term evaluation report of the third phase of clinical trials for Vietnam’s homegrown Nano Covax COVID-19 vaccine.
• Twenty-four provinces and cities in Vietnam are currently providing lessons for students from first to 12th grades via television and online classes due the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the Ministry of Education and Training.

Ho Chi Minh City

• Foreign Direct Investment – HCMC’s extension of social distancing until Sep. 30 is increasing the financial burden on them and causing many to consider moving out of Vietnam, FDI companies warned. The severe restrictions have already caused almost half of AmCham members to re-evaluate their business strategy and plans in Vietnam.
• The HCMC health department has suggested that the “green pass” is given to all vaccinated people, including those who have only got one shot.
• The Ho Chi Minh City Center for Disease Control received 54,700 more doses of AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine allocated by the Ministry of Health on Sep 19.
• Ho Chi Minh City will conduct rapid COVID-19 testing on all residents in high-risk areas once every two days per week, according to the municipal steering committee for pandemic prevention and control.
• Mobile medical stations in Ho Chi Minh City have been overloaded as more than 82,000 app-based delivery workers have signed up for rapid COVID-19 tests to meet the requirements for their operations.
• Residents of Tan Phong and Tan Phu Wards in District 7, Ho Chi Minh City took part in physical activities at local parks for the first time in months on Tuesday afternoon as local authorities began piloting another step to lift COVID-19 restrictions.

Hanoi

• As social distancing regulations in Hanoi are downgraded from the prime minister’s Directive No. 16 to Directive No. 15, functional forces are no longer checking commuters traveling within the city for travel passes starting on Sep 21.
• On Sep 21, a sea of people and vehicles thronged the streets in downtown Hanoi to celebrate the Mid-Autumn Festival in the evening, the first day after social distancing regulations were relaxed in the capital city.

Khanh Hoa (Nha Trang)

• By September 20, Khanh Hoa province injected 13,384 doses of COVID-19 vaccine to residents, bringing the total number of injected vaccines to 726,472 doses; in which 80,564 people had fully vaccinated.
• Up to Sep 21, Khanh Hoa province has gone 18 days without recording any community transmission.
• From Sep 24, people are allowed to exercise in the park, participate in outdoor sports activities such as tennis, golf, etc. The province is also expected to allow some services such as barber shop, electricity – water repair, grocery stores… can reopen but business owners must register to the authorities.
• Due to the influence of tropical depression, it is likely to become a storm, so from the afternoon of September 23, in the offshore area of Khanh Hoa province, there was a strong wind of level 5, then increased to level 6 and level 8; sea waves from 2-4 meters high; strong seas.

Da Nang

• A tropical depression is highly to strengthen into a storm, mainly moving in the northwestern track toward Central Vietnam, entering the waters off Thua Thien Hue – Binh Dinh localities by September 23.
• The central city of Da Nang recorded no local infection for the first time in 70 days on Sep 18, even though authorities had been conducting mass testing over the past days, according to the municipal steering committee for COVID-19 prevention and control.
• The Da Nang leader said that the city’s normalization schemes are under discussion. The city will consider continuing to apply COVID-19 control measures in line with the current direction from municipal and national governments, and replacing current travel permits and market entry cards with COVID-19 vaccination certificates.