COVID-19 infections in Vietnam’s largest city Ho Chi Minh have spread widely into the community, said city health officials.
They said random health checks at hospitals and in lockdown areas have accounted for a majority of infections detected in the city.
Health authorities said that since the new wave started on April 27, there have been 18,838 local cases recorded in 55 cities and provinces in Vietnam.
HCMC accounts for the most infections at 7,655, with cases recorded in 306 of its 312 wards and towns.
Last Sunday, the city became the worst hit locality among all 55 infected cities and provinces in the country.
Vietnam reported 276 local Covid-19 cases on Wednesday morning, with 270 of them in HCMC.
The new cases in HCMC include 232 in quarantined zones and isolated areas, while 38 other cases have unknown sources of transmission.
Of HCMC’s total cases, about 23 per cent were detected through mass testing, 12 per cent through medical examinations at local hospitals, 25 per cent in lockdown areas and the rest at centralised quarantine facilities.
According to the Vn Express, HCMC health department said the figures show that the transmission sources have spread all over the city.
As of Monday morning, HCMC had placed 738 areas under lockdown due to Covid-19 cases reported there.
HCMC chairman Nguyen Thanh Phong said last week that the Covid-19 wave that Vietnam was currently experiencing was more dangerous, complicated and unpredictable than previous ones.
He said the spread of the disease showed how complicated the pandemic had become, especially considering the World Health Organisation’s warning that the Delta variant was much more transmissible and vaccines have reduced effect on them.
Phong added that the high rate of secondary infection and the speed of the variant’s spread indicated that the number of infections was likely to keep rising in the coming days.
HCMC is still under social distancing measures and continues to locate infected areas and conduct contact tracing.
It will also continue the mass testing campaign it launched in June to detect all possible infections.
The city of more than 13 million including migrants have vaccinated more than 856,000 people, mostly with their first doses.
More than 700,000 people received it during a massive campaign between June 19 and 27.
Vietnam has vaccinated more than 3.92 million people against the coronavirus and 235,570 of them completing their two doses.
Meanwhile, the United States has decided to send Vietnam two million doses of Covid-19 vaccine.
The Moderna vaccine shipment is part of 80 million doses that President Joe Biden has pledged to give out worldwide.
It is expected to arrive during the weekend.
Source: New Straits Times
