Vietnam records 9,617 new Covid-19 cases

The three localities with the highest number of daily cases were HCMC, Binh Duong and Tay Ninh in the south with 1,339, 661 and 599, respectively.

With the confirmation of 102 deaths Friday, including 55 in HCMC, the Covid-19 death toll in the country rose to 23,578, or 2.2 percent of infections.

The Health Ministry also confirmed 1,971 recoveries the same day, bringing the total of recovered cases so far to 883,564.

As of Friday, 38.6 million of Vietnam's 96 million population have received two Covid-19 vaccine doses.

Since the fourth wave of the pandemic hit late April, Vietnam has recorded 1,070,011 local cases. The count since the start of the pandemic more than a year earlier is 1,075,094, ranking the country 37th among 223 countries and territories.