HCMC – The Ministry of Health confirmed 16,040 fresh Covid-19 cases this evening, January 14, with 14 of them being imported and the 16,026 remaining cases being locally infected, down 674 domestic cases against yesterday.
The new cases were reported in 62 out of the 63 provinces and cities nationwide. The capital city of Hanoi again took the lead by the case number at 3,029 cases, marking the first time that its daily cases exceeded 3,000.
The central city of Danang came second with 765 cases, followed by Binh Dinh with 711. Binh Phuoc, Ben Tre, Ca Mau, and Haiphong had 500-680 cases each, while Tay Ninh, Hung Yen, and HCMC recorded over 400 cases each.
The ministry confirmed 4,290 new recoveries and 171 new deaths in the day. Up to now, the country’s total recoveries reached over 1.6 million cases and the death toll exceeded 35,300.
Further, 51 cases of the Omicron variant have been recorded in Vietnam as of now, with all of them being quarantined upon arrival in the country.
In related news, the northern port city of Haiphong today lowered its Covid transmission risk from extremely high to high and eased restrictions earlier imposed on some services and activities.
Le Khac Nam, vice chairman of the municipal government, said a hike in daily cases during the first week of the year prompted the city to upgrade its Covid risk to the highest level on January 8 and suspend interprovincial passenger transport services.
After four days of making huge efforts to slow the spread of the virus, the number of new domestic cases declined, and local healthcare systems were improved. Also, the city accelerated its vaccination campaign. These enabled the city to lower the risk and ease restrictions on some services including passenger transport activities, the official said.
Commenting on the city’s constantly changing its transmission risk, Nguyen Huy Nga, former head of the Health Ministry’s General Department of Preventive Medicine, said the city should not repeat such actions. Since the Government issued guidelines on safe adaptation to Covid in October last year, no provinces or cities reportedly upgraded the risk to the highest level across the entire locality like Haiphong.
Further, Haiphong is among major cities in Vietnam, with a high demand for travel, goods transport, and trade. The risk upgrade would leave a major impact on local people, businesses in the city as well as those from neighboring provinces, Nga said.
Nga added that the city should not worry over a spike in its daily cases, as it has completed administering the first dose to the over-18s population, and its second-dose rate has exceeded 90%. The transmission risk would not be high, he said.
According to Nga, Haiphong should consider lowering the risk to moderate or low to create favorable conditions for business and manufacturing activities.
