HCMC should expect higher Covid numbers: health ministry

Health Minister Nguyen Thanh Long on Thursday said the coronavirus situation in Vietnam is complex due to the highly transmissible Delta variant, which has made its presence known in 58 out of 63 localities.

The number of new cases in HCMC and other southern Vietnam regions in particular continued to rise in recent days, with multiple clusters detected at markets, industrial parks and other highly populated residential areas, he added.

Infections would continue to be recorded in high numbers across HCMC before stabilizing, he said. Localities surrounding HCMC, for example Binh Duong, Long An and Dong Nai, would record new cases too, it was added.

For now, the ministry has dispatched around 10,000 personnel, including medical workers and volunteers to the southern metropolis's coronavirus frontline, said Long.

Amid the fourth coronavirus wave that hit Vietnam in late April, the ministry has issued a number of new quarantine protocols, including allowing asymptomatic Covid-19 cases and their close contacts to be self-isolated at home instead of in hospitals, to relieve the burden on the healthcare system, especially in hard-hit areas like HCMC.

The southern city has so far recorded 19,405 cases in the new wave, accounting for 56 percent of the national tally of 34,659.