As many as 2,093 children, including more than 1,500 in Ho Chi Minh City, have fallen victims to the latest COVID-19 outbreak after their parents died of the virus.

Several ministries have been asked to facilitate Vietnamese people and foreigners’ exit from and entry into the country.

Deputy Chair of the National Assembly Social Affairs Committee Dang Thuan Phong answered questions on the implementation of National Assembly Resolution 30 related to measures to prevent and control Covid-19 at a press conference on October 19.

After the Government issued Resolution 128 a number of cities and provinces began changing their pandemic prevention and control measures, facilitating production, goods circulation and people’s livelihoods.

The COVID-19 pandemic has forced up to 7,941 enterprises in the Mekong Delta to suspend their operations or register for dissolution in the first nine months of this year. ​

HCM City has had more than 11,000 hospitalized Covid-19 patients and more than 2,000 deaths per week in the fourth Covid-19 wave that began in late April. Dozens of field hospitals were established and all of them were overloaded.

The Ministry of Health (MOH) on October 14 sent a dispatch to local healthcare departments informing them about the plan to vaccinate children aged 12-17.

Doctor Nguyen Lan Hieu has proposed the removal of concentrated quarantine zones and field hospitals and the establishment of networks of care for patients at home at the commune and ward level.

Thirty-two cities and provinces across the country have declared their COVID-19 risk levels by October 18, following the Government’s new guidelines on safe adaption to the pandemic outlined in Resolution 128/NQ-CP.

The Ministry of Health plans to conduct vaccinations against COVID-19 for children aged 12-17 in late October, with those aged 16 - 17 to get the shots first

Deputy health minister Do Xuan Tuyen urged local administrations to not set policies that go against the spirit and letter of the Government’s Resolution 128, released last week on the national plan to live with COVID-19.

The Ministry of Science and Technology will research the production of COVID-19 vaccines, treatment drugs and new SARS-CoV-2 testing methods, said Minister of Science and Technology Huynh Thanh Dat.

Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh has asked leaders of the Ministry of Health to provide the latest information to the media on a daily and weekly basis on the COVID-19 prevention and control situation.

The HCM City Department of Health has begun to close COVID-19 field hospitals located at dormitories and schools as the number of COVID-19 cases has dropped in recent weeks.

Ho Chi Minh City currently has no plans to vaccinate children aged 12-17 against COVID-19, deputy head of the municipal Steering Committee for COVID-19 Prevention and Control Pham Duc Hai affirmed on October 18.

With 98.5 percent of people aged 18 and over having been vaccinated and 75 percent of adults fully vaccinated, many people mistakenly believe that HCM City has reached herd immunity.

The Ministry of Transport on October 16 issued temporary instructions about the operation of transport services, requiring only passengers using road and waterway transport services to undergo Covid-19 tests

Pandemic prevention and control policies must be unified nationwide, PM Pham Minh Chinh told an online conference with the Steering Committees for COVID-19 Prevention and Control of 63 provinces today.

Using the same ECMO (extracorporeal membrane oxygenation) machine for two patients was a daring decision by doctors at Hospital 175 which brought wonderful results: both the patients were saved.

Dr Luong Truong Son, a physician and former Deputy Head of the HCM City Institute of Malariology, Parastology and Entomology, said the number of Covid-19 infections in the country shows that the fight against the pandemic will continue.