Late one night in August, Nguyen Minh Hoang, a teacher at a secondary school in HCM City, received a message from one of his students.

The B Medicine Bag, with anti-inflammatory and antibiotic drugs, prescribed for Covid-19 patients with severe symptoms, is being abused by patients with mild symptoms, which may cause serious consequences.

The HCM City Department of Health has sought permission from the Ministry of Health for a seven-day quarantine period for fully vaccinated and asymptomatic cases with negative COVID-19 test results.

Many southern provinces have strengthened COVID-19 prevention measures as the number of locally transmitted cases has increased in the region.

The economy comprises many interwoven chains, and one province applying extreme measures can create a deadlock in the entire region and the country.

After one month of Resolution 128, the number of Covid-19 related deaths and critical cases has dropped sharply, according to the National Steering Committee for Covid-19 Prevention and Control.

Moments in the fight against Covid-19 in HCM City and the southern provinces this year have reminded people not only of difficulties and losses but also of human love and the efforts to overcome adversity.

The Cuu Long (Mekong) Delta city of Can Tho has posted a record number of daily new COVID-19 cases, with the number of cases reaching 712 on Wednesday, according to the municipal Department of Health.

Hanoi has changed its view about the treatment of positive Covid cases and the home quarantine of their close contacts.

Eighteen infants who were mistakenly inoculated with COVID-19 vaccines in Quoc Oai District, Hanoi are in stable conditions two weeks after the shots, according to Saint-Paul Hospital.

Hanoi has set up five centres to quarantine and treat COVID-19 patients with mild symptoms in five districts with a total of 1,150 beds from Wednesday (November 17).

Hu tieu (noodle soup), milk tea, broken rice, snails and fried fish balls – the common dishes of Vietnamese – are being sold at shops on HCM City’s Bui Vien Street.

Ho Chi Minh City has established eight temporary hospitals with nearly 300 beds each to treat moderately ill COVID-19 patients and people with underlying medical conditions as the number of COVID-19 cases rises.

The capital is set to allow F0 and F1 cases to quarantine at home in an effort to ease pressure placed on concentrated isolation facilities and reduce the risk of cross-infection occurring at concentrated quarantine centres.

Buddhist temples and establishments across the country will ring the bell, lit candles, offer incense and pray for those who died from COVID-19 at 8pm on November 19, in coordination with a national requiem for the dead victims of the coronavirus.

Reports with headlines such as ‘lockdown may resume as infections on the rise’, ‘new pandemic wave’, ‘high danger of new pandemic outbreak in Vietnam’, and ‘mortality rate increases, including among fully vaccinated people’ are all untrue.

Covid developments in Mekong Delta provinces as of November 11 morning remained complicated.

Secretary of HCM City Party Committee Nguyen Van Nen has ordered the Sai Gon Hi-Tech Park (SHTP) Management Board to place pandemic prevention and protection of workers’ heath as its top priority under the “new normal”.

More than a million people have now tested positive for COVID-19 in Vietnam.

The Ministry of Health has asked localities to review and instruct all schools to build flexible and safe COVID-19 prevention and control plans to allow children to go back to class.