HCMC records 64,300 Covid positive tests in a week

The positive cases will need confirmation PCR tests to be registered into the Health Ministry's tally of Covid-19 patients.

Pham Duc Hai, deputy head of the municipal Steering Committee for Covid-19 Prevention and Control, said Sunday that while most samples in high-risk areas had been collected by Friday, testing needed to be speeded up in low-risk areas.

The municipal People's Committee has requested local authorities to ramp up sample collection, specifying that in low-risk areas, the first round of testing must be done before August 30 and the second before September 6 in order to enable timely risk assessments.

High-risk areas meanwhile must finish their second round of testing before September 1, the Committee added.

Around 754 officials would be dispatched across the city's 22 districts to monitor coronavirus control measures, Hai said.

Ho Chi Minh City, epicenter of the fourth coronavirus wave that hit Vietnam in late April, has recorded 209,921 local Covid-19 cases so far in the new wave. The 13-million-strong city's Covid-19 death toll has risen to more than 8,600.