Vietnam adds 3,034 COVID-19 cases to national infection tally
VOV.VN - A further 3,034 people were confirmed to be positive for the SARS-CoV-2 virus, thereby taking the national tally since the pandemic first hit the country back in early 2020 to 870,255, according to Ministry of Health in its October 19 update.
Ho Chi Minh City recorded the highest number of infections with 907, followed by Binh Duong province with 500 and Dong Nai province with 371.
The Health Ministry also reported a total of 1,866 recoveries on the same day, bringing the total number of recovered cases to 794,846.
The national COVID-19 death toll also rose to 21,344 following the confirmation of 75 deaths on October 19.
The average number of new cases nationwide over the past seven days has been 3,272 a day, while the national death rate has averaged at 83 a day.
Since the fourth pandemic wave initially broke out back in late April, the country documented a total of 865,558 new infections, of which 792,029 patients have gone on to fully recover from the disease.
Most notably, two out of 62 provinces and cities have stayed free from the SARS-CoV-2 virus for 14 days, including Bac Ka and Hoa Binh.
As of October 11, the country had inoculated over 64.9 million doses of vaccines, with more than 18.4 million people now being fully vaccinated.
With the nation switching from a zero-COVID-19 strategy to a policy of living with the virus, the nation has issued a pandemic level evaluation directive in each locality that consists of two criteria. This include the proportion of people aged 18 and more getting vaccinated, and the number of new cases per 100,000 people in a week.
According to the evaluation, the Government will designate infected areas into red, orange, yellow, and green, meaning 'very high risk’, 'high risk', 'medium risk', and 'low risk.' Localities can therefore decide to relax restrictions based on their relevant risk levels.