This is the second time the city has sent religious volunteers to support local field hospitals and other medical facilities in the frontline against the pandemic.

Speaking at the ceremony, Tô Thị Bích Châu, Chairwoman of the VFF Committee - HCM City chapter, was moved while acknowledging and thanking the volunteers for their willingness to support the community, saying that during such difficult times, the spirit of great national solidarity has demonstrated its power of cohesion among people of all ethnicities, genders, and religions, thereby promoting the strength of the national unity bloc through a myriad of noble gestures imbued with humanity.

Through various effective forms, religious groups in the city have made significant contributions, in terms of their material, spiritual and human resources, to the fight against COVID-19, as the volunteer forces have supported and reduced the burden on frontline doctors and nurses, especially in terms of the treatment of COVID-19 patients, Chau said.

The city always appreciates the sentiment and dedication of religious volunteers as well as the city’s residents towards supporting the prevention and control of the epidemic in HCM City, thus creating a strong motivation and catalyst for the city to win the fight, she emphasised.

In this deployment, 70 volunteers, Catholic dignitaries and their compatriots, will be brought to support COVID-19 treatment at several local hospitals. All volunteers have undergone a training course and have been vaccinated against COVID-19.

On July 22, the first deployment of 299 religious volunteers, made up of Catholics, Protestants and Buddhists, took place.

In Binh Duong province, as the number of COVID-19 infections approaches 32,000, the locality is rushing to speed up vaccinations, especially for workers in local industrial zones. Injection time are being extended after 6 pm to facilitate workers after their working day.

Vaccination against COVID-19 for workers at the Becamex IDC Corp Industrial Park in Binh Duong province

In the first phase (August 5- 7), the Vietnam Vaccine Joint Stock Company (VNVC) Immunization Centre completed 50,000 injections out of a total of 200,000 in the province.

From August 9 to 11, 40 injection teams with 200 members from the VNVC deployed vaccination in large industrial zones in Binh Duong, serving about 50,000 workers without any limitation in the number of people vaccinated in each injection session, with the maximum doses on each day of each vaccination team up to and over 2,000 injections.

At an online press conference on August 11, Nguyễn Thị Yến, Deputy Secretary of the Ba Ria-Vung Tau Provincial Party Committee, affirmed that after the end of the social distancing order, the province will apply another distancing order under the Prime Minister’s Directive 15 until August 25, with some relaxed restrictions compared to the measures in Directive 16.

The current order is expected to end on August 15, but the province will be placed under another social distancing order following Prime Minister’s Directive 15 until August 25, with a focus on communications to raise people's awareness in strictly complying as well as with local regulations on epidemic prevention and control.

Regarding the local vaccination campaign, the province has allocated the fifth batch of vaccines provided by the Ministry of Health to local administrative units, with the determination to speed up, ensure safety and complete its fifth round of vaccination before August 13.