Head of the Party Central Committee’s Commission for Information and Education Nguyen Trong Nghia met voters in the southern province of Tay Ninh on October 8, ahead of the second session of the 15th National Assembly.

The Hanoi People’s Court on October 8 gave imprisonment sentences to three persons for illegally bringing two Chinese to Vietnam amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Ministry of Health has announced 4,806 new cases of COVID-19 on Friday, along with a further 114 COVID-related deaths. 

T&T Group and Saigon - Ha Noi Commercial Joint Stock Bank (SHB) have presented 150,000 COVID-19 rapid test kits to Hai Duong to aid the northern province’s pandemic prevention and control.

COVID-19 update

Chairman of Japan’s Daiyu Steel Co. Ltd Sakuo Inoue has pledged to donate 1 million JPY (8,940 USD) to Vietnam’s national COVID-19 vaccine fund.

The mountainous Đà Lạt City in Lâm Đồng Province installed its first ever traffic signal at the Hoàng Văn Thụ - Trần Phú - Ba Tháng Hai intersection on October 5, and it even has a countdown timer.

The Vietnam Fatherland Front Committee of Ho Chi Minh City, the city Party Committee’s Mass Mobilisation Commission and municipal Religious Affairs Committee on October 8 held a send-off ceremony for 50 volunteers who are Buddhist dignitaries, monks, nuns and followers to join frontline forces in the fight against COVID-19 at the COVID-19 Intensive Care Hospital.

After many months of severe lockdown in the southern provinces, many migrant workers from other parts of the country are desperate to return to their hometowns. Prime Minister Vũ Đức Đam has pledged support measures to help.  

A Chinese national was jailed for two years for “fabricating an organisation’s document” under Article 341 of the 2015 Penal Code, the People’s Court of Hanoi ruled at a first-instance trial on October 8.

Average monthly incomes of workers in most economic sectors in the third quarter declined compared to the previous quarter and the same period last year, according to the General Statistics Office (GSO)

The HCM City Department of Industry and Trade has instructed delivery companies to continue pooled sample testing of their drivers using rapid antigen tests every one to three days though the city reopened on October 1 and allows people to travel without carrying permits or test results.

Minister of Foreign Affairs Bui Thanh Son on October 8 handed over to the Vietnam Fatherland Front (VFF) Central Committee more than 3 billion VND (131,680 USD) donated by overseas Vietnamese to support the country’s COVID-19 fight and the vaccine fund.

Schools in HCM City will reopen for in-person learning in the second semester of the acedemic year that begins in January amid declining COVID-19 infection cases and hospitalisations, according to the city’s Department of Education and Training.

Heavy rain is expected to blanket northern and north-central provinces from Saturday to Tuesday due to storm Lionrock – the seventh storm that has entered the East Sea this year, according to the National Hydrometeorological Forecast Centre.

The US has sent another million doses of Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 vaccines to Việt Nam, the US Agency for International Development announced.

The Ministry of Health on Wednesday added three antiviral drugs - Molnupiravir 400 mg, remdesivir and favipiravir to its latest COVID-19 treatment protocol.

The Nanoneem project by the namesake team from HCM City’s International University and Foreign Trade University in Hà Nội that uses nanotechnology to produce herb-based pesticides to enable green agriculture has won the first prize in the 2021 Social Business Creation competition, a cash award of 30,000 Canadian dollars (US$) and a 4,200-dollar scholarship.

A Vietnam Airlines flight has brought 130 students of Hanoi Medical University and hundreds of medical workers, who finished their tasks of helping Ho Chi Minh City and southern localities, fight COVID-19, back to Hanoi.

Vietnam is planning to reopen certain tourist destinations from November this year, towards a full resumption in June 2022, according to a plan mapped out by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism.