24-hour COVID-19 tally hits over 178,000 new cases
VOV.VN - Health authorities confirmed a further 178,112 new COVID-19 cases on March 17 across 63 cities and provinces nationwide, a drop of 2,443 from the previous day, including 124,725 local infections.
Hanoi continued to report the highest number of infections on the day with 25,311 cases, followed by Nghe An with 10,511 and Phu Tho with 7,867.
A total of 76 deaths were confirmed over the past 24 hours, thereby raising the death toll to 41,683
The Health Ministry also announced additional 135,683 recoveries on the same day, bringing the total number of recovered cases to close to 3.68 million since the start of the pandemic.
Compared with Asia, the total number of deaths ranks sixth out of 49th (3rd in ASEAN), death rate per 1 million people is 23/49 Asian countries and territories (4th in ASEAN).
The average number of new infections recorded over the past week stands at 166,671 daily cases nationwide.
As of March 15, the whole country injected 349,781 doses of COVID-19 vaccine, pushing up the total number of administered doses to more than 201 million, including more than184 million people aged 18 years and over.
The Health Ministry has been urged to direct centrally-run cities and provinces to accelerate the vaccination of the booster shot against COVID-19 for people aged 18 and above.
The Health Ministry should closely monitor the international situation and study international recommendations and experience on the administration of the fourth shot with a view to proactively handling related issues and report to the Prime Minister any issues beyond its authority.