At the City International Hospital, Minister Long applauded the hospital for volunteering to treat COVID-19 patients and decided to set up a 500-bed intensive care centre at the hospital with staff to be provided by the University Medical Centre Ho Chi Minh City. He promised to immediately provide the hospital with 50 ventilators from the Health Ministry’s warehouse in the city. The hospital is scheduled to begin receiving COVID-19 patients on August 2 morning.

Inspecting the progress of the temporary 500-bed COVID-19 hospital No.16 run by the Hanoi-based Bach Mai Hospital, the health minister instructed providing 100 high-performance ventilators and 100 high-flow nasal cannulas for the temporary hospital.

Checking the pace of the building of an intensive care centre at temporary hospital No.13 run by the Hanoi-based Viet Duc Hospital and another at temporary hospital No.11 operated by Hue Central Hospital, the officials asked units concerned to step up their construction, striving to receive patients in serious conditions by August 5, initially with 200 beds and raising to 500 beds at the earliest.

On the same day, Nen and Long visited and encouraged doctors treating over 500 COVID-19 patients at the Ho Chi Minh City COVID-19 Resuscitation Hospital operated by Cho Ray Hospital.

Previously, on the morning of August 1, hundreds of modern medical machines, and equipment along with gifts to support Ho Chi Minh City were transferred from Bach Mai Hospital to Ho Chi Minh City. In the coming days, Bach Mai Hospital will continue to send hundreds of medical staff to support the city in its COVID-19 fight.

To boost vaccination against COVID-19 in Ho Chi Minh City and some adjacent areas in the provinces of Binh Duong, Dong Nai and Long An, Deputy Prime Minister Vu Duc Dam, Head of the National Steering Committee for COVID-19 Prevention and Control, has directed such localities to actively coordinate with the Ministry of Health to adjust the vaccination procedure in accordance with the requirements and actual situation. The Ministry of Health was asked to allocate adequate vaccines to ensure the vaccination schedule at the request of the local authorities.

Ho Chi Minh City has added 200 injection teams to increase the total number to 1,200 teams, aiming to inject 200 shots each team per day. The city also requires the organisers of vaccination sessions to not limit the number of people injecting in each session.

In Hanoi, the municipal People’s Committee on August 1 issued an official dispatch asking localities across the city to assess high-risk areas, especially hospitals, industrial parks and clusters, populous residential areas, and concentrated quarantine facilities, while taking the initiative in making decisions on higher control measures during the period of social distancing. Local authorities are required to not to allow residents to travel outside the city during the period of social distancing.

As of this morning, the Ministry of Health reported 3,201 new infections of COVID-19, including three imported cases, bringing the national count to 157,507.

A total of 43,157 patients were given the all-clear, while 6,415,219 COVID-19 vaccine doses have been administered in the country so far, with 659,064 people getting full two shots.