HCMC – The Ministry of Health confirmed 11,132 new Covid-19 infections this evening, November 23, including six imported cases and 11,126 domestic transmissions in 61 cities and provinces.
HCMC reported the most infections, at 1,204, followed by Ba Ria-Vung Tau with 709, Binh Duong with 698, Tay Ninh with 600, Dong Thap with 597, Dong Nai with 571, Vinh Long with 505, Binh Thuan with 493, and Bac Lieu with 747.
Soc Trang, Can Tho, Kien Giang and An Giang reported 320 to 395 new cases each, while other cities and provinces had fewer than 300 new infections each.
Notably, the southern city of Binh Duong updated 28,000 more infections to the national Covid case management system. With these updated cases, the province’s Covid tally in the fourth wave of the pandemic, which began in late April 2021, jumped to 277,406.
Nguyen Hong Chuong, director of the Binh Duong Department of Health, said these 28,000 infections were detected between July 10 and November 3. These patients had real-time RT-PCR test results confirming their infections but were not assigned a patient code for various reasons, including the overloaded health system and late updates from local medical facilities.
With the fresh cases recorded today, the country’s domestically transmitted cases have amounted to 1,110,836 in the fourth Covid wave. Meanwhile, the total case number since the beginning of the outbreak late last year reached 1,143,967, ranking 37th among 223 countries and territories.
This afternoon, the Ministry of Health confirmed 167 more Covid deaths, taking the nation’s death toll to 24,118. The new deaths included 62 in HCMC, 28 in An Giang, 12 in Binh Duong, and 11 in Dong Nai. Sixteen other cities and provinces reported fewer than 10 deaths each.
To date, 911,310 Covid patients have fully recovered, while there are currently some 5,300 critically ill Covid patients in the country.
Vietnam has administered 110.9 million doses of Covid vaccines nationwide so far. Some 43.5 million people have got two shots.
According to the HCMC Department of Health, some 75% of Covid deaths recorded in the city from November 19 to 21 were neither vaccinated nor fully-dosed.
Nguyen Thi Huynh Mai, Chief of staff at the HCMC Department of Health, said most of the unvaccinated patients were people who had health contraindications to the vaccine or elderly people.
“To reduce the number of Covid deaths, the city will continue speeding up the provision of two vaccine doses for the residents. Besides, the people should strictly comply with anti-pandemic measures,” she added.
HCMC’s new Covid cases have recently remained at about 1,000 per day. Of these, 15-20% became worse, mostly older people with underlying medical conditions, and some 5% turned critically ill, resulting in fatalities.
Dr Nguyen Hong Tam, deputy director of the HCMC Center for Diseases Control and Prevention, said medical centers of wards and communes have faced a shortage of medical workers in the past few weeks but the Health Department has added staff to the medical centers to help Covid patients who are being treated at home.
The residents should contact local medical centers and mobile medical stations in wards and communes if they are infected with Covid. The healthcare staff will then visit these patients within 24 hours for treatment and quarantine instructions.
Tam noted that not all Covid patients will be provided with medicines. Local medical workers will evaluate their health conditions and then provide medicines if necessary.
If the patients do not contact local health stations, they will not be granted an official paper that certifies their recovery.
According to the HCMC Department of Health, Covid patients can receive treatment and undergo quarantine at home if the family does not have anyone in high-risk groups such as people with underlying medical conditions or people who are obese or pregnant.
Patients who are children or adults that lack a caregiver must have people to assist them if they are undergoing treatment at home.
