PM chairs national meeting on COVID-19 prevention, control

Hanoi (VNA) – Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh on September 13 chaired the 17th meeting of the national steering committee for COVID-19 prevention and control, which gathered participants from the 63 provinces and cities across the country.

Addressing the virtual session, Chinh, also head of the committee, highlighted the importance of issuing the Government’s Resolution 128 on making Vietnam’s response to the pandemic more flexible. He said it was key to the work and to socio-economic recovery and development.

Chinh noted that to date, the response has proved effective, with the epidemic put under control, macroeconomics kept stable, the economy and labour market recovering, and national territorial sovereignty, politics, and social security ensured.

Given the current complicated developments of the pandemic, the Government leader requested competent agencies and localities to come up with measures to tackle a state of neglect as well as slow vaccination progress.

The committee warned of the epidemic’s unpredictable developments in the world, and underscored the need to boost vaccination - still a vital solution.

According to a report of the committee at the function, Vietnam has so far logged more than 11.4 million COVID-19 cases, including 10.3 recoveries and over 43,000 deaths.

In the past seven days from September 5-11, an average of about 2,900 new cases was posted daily, with the number of infections being on the rise again.

As of September 11, 258.7 million shots of COVID-19 vaccines were given to the people in Vietnam. The rate of the people aged from 12 years old completing the first and second shots of the vaccines reached almost 100%./.