Daily Covid-19 Update 16 August 2021

HCMC extends social distancing by another 30 days

HCMC will extend its social distancing status by another month until September 15 in response to sustained coronavirus threats. The decision to continue the social distancing campaign was made Sunday as the city of 10 million people completed 30 days of semi-lockdown under Directive 16 and recorded 149,286 Covid cases. It had previously gone a social distancing campaign under Directive 15 for 40 days. Directive 16 requires people to stay home and only go out for basic necessities like buying food or medicines or to work at factories or businesses allowed to operate. Directive 15 requires suspension of social events, bans gatherings of 20 people or more in one place and of 10 people or more outside workplaces, schools and hospitals. The pandemic is still raging in HCMC with then number of daily new infections going up on Saturday and Sunday after decreasing for a short time. The fatality rate in the city remains high at 241 deaths on average per day. The city continues to require people not to leave their homes from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. the next day except in the following cases: vaccination, emergency, forces in charge of pandemic prevention, those authorized by the local authorities, employees of supermarkets, convenience stores. Shops and business establishments must remain closed. State agencies and political organizations must operate with no more than one fourth of officials on site, except for military and health sector forces that have to ensure 100 percent capacity in exercising their pandemic management functions. On Sunday, municipal Chairman Nguyen Thanh Phong said the city plans to contain the pandemic by September 15 in two phases. In the next phase, from September 1 to 15, the city will strive to reduce the death rate among critically ill patients by 20 percent, and to ensure that the number of daily new hospitalizations do not exceed the number of discharged people.

Vietnam to buy another 20 mln Pfizer vaccine doses

The government plans to buy another 20 million doses of the Pfizer vaccine, following up on the deal for 31 million doses struck by the Ministry of Health in May. The Health Ministry will start the process to get the vaccine as soon as possible. Vietnam plans to innoculate 70 percent of its population against Covid-19 and is trying to procure the needed vaccines in various ways. The first one million of Pfizer doses arrived in July and another three million are set to be delivered this month. The remaining 47 million doses are expected to be delivered in fourth quarter of the year.