COVID-19: Infection tally surges again at more than 16,000

The Ministry of Health announced the detection of a further 16,141 new COVID-19 cases in Vietnam on December 11 to bring the national tally since the start of the pandemic up to 1,395,561.

In terms of the latest cases, 9,478 were found in the community and 37 were imported.

Ho Chi Minh City once again tops the daily case list with 1,441 new infections, followed by Binh Phuoc with 1,164 and Tay Ninh with 903.

Elsewhere, Hanoi recorded 548 new cases following the COVID-19 pandemic spreading to the majority of districts in the capital, with a growing number of locally-acquired infections.

Furthermore, an additional 209 casualties were also reported to raise the country’s death toll to 27,611.

The average number of new cases nationwide over the past seven days has been 14,789 a day, while the national death rate has been an average of 221 daily.

The Health Ministry also confirmed an additional 1,084 recoveries on the same day, thereby bringing the total number of recovered cases up to 1,053,425.

As of December 11, more than 57.1 million have been fully vaccinated against COVID-19.

Ho Chi Minh City has launched a campaign to administer booster vaccine shots to high-risk groups and people aged 18 and above who received their two vaccine doses six months ago.

According to the Ho Chi Minh City Health Department, from December to June, 2022, the southern city requires more than 6.3 million doses of vaccines of all kinds for additional or repeated injections.

The same day saw the Department of Health, Military Command of Da Nang City, in collaboration with the municipal People's Committee welcome a flight to bring 355 Vietnamese citizens from Saudi Arabia back to the country for pandemic avoidance.

All passengers were subjected to temperature checks, whilst they had to present SARS-CoV-2 virus test certificates and medical declarations in line with the regulations set out by the Ministry of Health.