Schools open in Vietnam, more to open by middle of month

Vietnam opened most of its schools on Monday (February 7) to welcome 17 million students across the country. Country's health ministry announced plans to start vaccinating children five-years and older against Covid. Most of the Covid curbs in the country were lifted in October but almost all students were taking online classes since last year.

Health ministry said that almost all schools in the country would reopen by mid-February.

On Monday, Vietnam reported 16,815 new COVID-19 cases, including 16,809 locally transmitted and six imported, according to its Ministry of Health.

The Vietnamese capital Hanoi reported the highest number of infections on Monday with 2,988 cases, followed by central Nghe An province with 1,247 cases and central Da Nang city with 935 cases.

The infections brought the country`s total tally to 2,35,8786 with 38,424 deaths. Nationwide, 2,122,380 COVID-19 patients have so far recovered.

Some 182.4 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines, including 29 million third shots, have been administered, said the ministry.

Vietnam has by far gone through four coronavirus waves of increasing scale, complication and infectivity.As of Monday, the country has registered over 2.35 million locally transmitted COVID-19 cases since the start of the current wave in late April last year, according to the ministry.