New rules of lifting

Vietnam records five new Covid-19 cases

February 26, 2021 by e.vnexpress.net

“Patients 2422, 2423, 2425 and 2426” from Hai Duong were already in quarantine. They are being treated at field hospitals in the northern province.

“Patient 2424” is a 24-year-old woman from Thoi Lai District, Can Tho City, who entered Vietnam illegally through the border at Hong Ngu District, Dong Thap Province on February 23 and was quarantined soon after. Her test results returned positive for the novel coronavirus on February 25.

In the past 29 days, Vietnam has recorded 831 community transmissions in 13 localities. Hai Duong is the biggest hotspot with 647 cases, following by Quang Ninh with 61 and HCMC with 36. Ten of these localities haven’t recorded new community transmissions for the past 14 days.

With the latest cases, the nation’s Covid-19 tally has increased to 2,426 with 1,839 recoveries and 35 deaths.

World News in Brief: February 26

February 26, 2021 by en.nhandan.org.vn

* China and India should firmly follow the right path of mutual trust and cooperation between neighboring major countries, and not go astray with suspicion and distrust nor fall back on a road of negative retrogression, Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi said Thursday. Wang made the remarks in a telephone conversation with Indian External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, stressing that the two sides should maintain the strategic consensuses reached by their leaders.

* As COVID-19 transmission rates seemingly decline across the European Region, the World Health Organization (WHO) Regional Director for Europe Hans Kluge expressed health concerns over “long-COVID” or “post-COVID” symptoms at a virtual press conference on Thursday.

* Russian President Vladimir Putin discussed the situation in Armenia in a telephone conversation with Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan on Thursday, the Kremlin said.

* The Pentagon confirmed on Thursday that the US military had conducted airstrikes against infrastructure utilized by Iranian-backed militant groups in eastern Syria. The Pentagon called the operation a “proportionate military response” carried out after consultations with coalition partners.

* China approved two more vaccines for public use, raising the number of domestically produced vaccines that can be used in China to four.

* Japan on Friday is preparing to lift the state of emergency over COVID-19 for five prefectures where the situation has improved, although the Greater Tokyo metropolitan area will likely be kept under the emergency period for the time being, according to government sources.

* The Department of Health (DOH) of the Philippines reported on Friday 2,651 new COVID-19 cases, the highest daily increase since Oct. 17 last year, bringing the total number of confirmed cases in the Southeast Asian country to 571,327.

* Leaders of the European Union (EU) called for an accelerated production and delivery of COVID-19 vaccines late on Thursday as the bloc is struggling with supply shortfalls.

* Brazil surpassed 250,000 COVID-19 deaths, while France and Germany said COVID-19 is here to stay after European Union leaders discussed ways to fight new variants of the virus, step up inoculations and save Europe’s tourism industry from another ruinous summer.

* Europe’s medicines regulator issued new guidance for drug makers that modify their vaccines to protect against variants of the virus to speed up the approval process.

* France will bring in new restrictions for the Moselle area around its common border with Germany, and impose measures including weekend lockdowns in Paris and 19 other regions from the start of March if signs of the coronavirus accelerating persist.

* Australia’s Victoria state will start easing restrictions from Friday night.

* Republic of Korea launched its inoculation campaign, with shots to be administered in some 200 nursing homes.

* US President Joe Biden’s administration plans to launch a campaign to educate Americans about vaccines in anticipation of a period later this year where supply may outstrip demand because of vaccine hesitancy.

* Brazil will purchase 20 million doses of the vaccine made by India’s Bharat Biotech for delivery between March and May.

* Canada’s vaccination campaign is ramping up after earlier supply disruptions and the number of inoculations last week hit a five-week high.

* Pfizer and BioNTech said they are testing a third dose of their vaccine to better understand the immune response against new variants of the virus.

* Mexico’s economy grew quicker than first estimated during the fourth quarter as the country recovered from its sharpest economic contraction in nearly nine decades.

* Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions have fallen to the lowest level since 1995 as coronavirus restrictions limited travel. Data released by the Department of Industry, Science, Energy and Resources on Friday revealed that emissions fell by 4.4 percent in the 12 months to September 2020.

* Security personnel of the Indian Coast Guard (ICG) rescued more than 80 Rohingya refugees who had been onboard a boat drifting in the waters of Andaman Sea for 10 days, and retrieved eight dead bodies.

* Republic of Korea’s quarantine authorities said Friday that it will extend the country’s five-tier social-distancing rules at the third-highest level in the Seoul metropolitan area for two weeks.

* US President Joe Biden said on Thursday that he would work to make US-Saudi relations “as strong and transparent as possible.” Biden made the remarks in the first phone conversation with Saudi Arabia’s King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud since Biden’s inauguration.

* Germany’s Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure said on Wednesday that more than EUR5 billion (US$6.1 billion) would be invested in the modernization of over 3,000 railway stations across the country.

* Colombian President Ivan Duque announced a decision Thursday night to extend a declared national health emergency due to the COVID-19 pandemic by three more months, as the vaccination drive entered its eighth day.

* AstraZeneca boss Pascal Soriot said he hoped to meet the EU’s expectations on the number of vaccines the company can deliver to the bloc in the second quarter.

* The Czech prime minister said people’s movement needed to be “radically” limited over at least the next three weeks.

* Portugal extended until at least mid-March a nationwide lockdown.

* The African Union is backing calls for drugmakers to waive some intellectual property rights on COVID-19 medicines and vaccines.

* Israel has frozen its programme to send vaccines abroad to buy international goodwill, Defence Minister Benny Gantz said, after the initiative came under legal scrutiny.

* Bahrain has approved Johnson & Johnson’s one-dose vaccine for emergency use.

HCM City keeps shutdown of certain services in place

February 26, 2021 by en.qdnd.vn

The municipal People’s Committee has ordered continued closure of dance halls, bars, karaoke parlours, pubs, beer clubs, and facilities for indoor sports activities like gym, fitness, billiards, and yoga centres.

Others not included in this list can be reopened but have to carry out all anti-coronavirus measures regulated by health authorities.

Besides, the set of safety assessment criteria in COVID-19 prevention and control must be seriously implemented in the fields of tourism, transport, and restaurant services, as well as at wholesale and retail markets, supermarkets, trade centres, relic sites, and libraries.

A distance of at least one metre from each other must be kept in those activities, and food service supplying establishments are not permitted to serve more than 30 people at the same time, according to the administration.

Meanwhile, religious activities and rituals at local places of worship can take place with no more than 50 participants at the same time. They also have to comply with other disease prevention measures regulated by the health sector, the People’s Committee said.

Earlier, the committee also permitted schools across the city to be reopened from March 1.

On February 23, the lockdown on an apartment block in Ward 13 of Tan Binh district was lifted. This was the last of the 35 sealed-off sites that had their COVID-19 lockdown removed in HCM City.

Source: VNA

HCM City’s Dept of Health develops emergency plan for COVID-19

February 26, 2021 by en.qdnd.vn

The plan is being made because of pandemic developments including new variants and outbreaks globally.

The department will continue to use available personnel and facilities at designated hospitals for treatment of COVID-19 patients.

These hospitals include Cu Chi COVID-19 Treatment Hospital with 300 beds, Can Gio COVID-19 Treatment Hospital with 600 beds, HCM City Hospital for Tropical Diseases with 40 beds at its Department for Transmissible Diseases D, and the City Children’s Hospital and Children’s Hospital 2.

These hospitals will be ready to increase the number of beds to admit COVID-19 patients and others suspected of having COVID-19 if an outbreak occurs.

If the hospitals become overloaded, the department will use Pham Ngoc Thach Hospital’s 464 beds to admit COVID-19 patients.

The department has instructed hospitals in the city to prepare doctors and nurses to be available for examination and treatment of COVID-19 patients if necessary.

These doctors and nurses will have to receive training in professional knowledge on treatment and control of infections, and ensure safety for medical staff as well as patients.

Last year, the Cu Chi COVID-19 Treatment Hospital and Can Gio COVID-19 Treatment Hospital were the two main health facilities isolating and treating COVID-19 patients and suspected cases. This was done to help reduce pressure and risk of transmission at city hospitals.

The hospitals’ doctors and nurses came from other hospitals in the city and worked on a rotation system.

The department has also instructed the 115 Emergency Centre to continue carrying out its task of transporting COVID-19 patients to designated hospitals for treatment.

Hospitals have helped the city Centre for Diseases Control and Prevention (CDC) to take samples for testing at Tan Son Nhat airport, and bus and railway stations.

Besides the Pasteur Institute and the CDC, tests are conducted by the HCM City Hospital for Tropical Diseases, Children’s Hospital 1, City Children’s Hospital, and Pham Ngoc Thach, Nguyen Tri Phuong, District 2, Thu Duc, FV, Gia An 115 and Hoan My Sai Gon hospitals, as well as several hospitals owned by the Ministry of Health and other agencies.

This year, more hospitals in the city will be assessed for their capacity to conduct COVID-19 tests.

The department has instructed hospitals to prepare medicine, chemicals and protective clothes as well as equipment for their medical staff when they are called for emergencies.

It has also required all hospitals and health facilities to review and assess safety criteria in COVID-19 prevention and control. They have been ordered to ask their patients to fill out online health declarations.

Since February 5, when online health declarations began at hospitals and health centers in the city, 127 private and public healthcare facilities have used the department’s health declaration application.

By March 8, all hospital and health center in the city will have to use the application.

According to the department, hospitals should offer training courses for their doctors and nurses in screening, isolating and taking samples for tests, and treatment guidelines related to COVID-19 issued by the Ministry of Health.

Hospitals have also been instructed to take samples for testing all of their staff by March 10.

Following the Ministry of Health’s requirement, the department is collaborating with Cho Ray Hospital to set up an expert team specializing in COVID-19 treatment to assist other hospitals that admit severely ill COVID-19 patients who need emergency treatment.

Source: VNA

Vietnam’s delivery e-commerce startup Loship raises funds from Skype co-founder

February 26, 2021 by www.vir.com.vn

Skype co-founder Jaan Tallinn is the latest big tech name to invest in Vietnamese startup Loship

Tallinn’s investment in Loship puts him on a list of global tech leaders betting on Vietnamese tech startups, which has shown resilience and growth even amidst COVID-19. Thus, Loship is poised to become a prominent tech figure for any seasoned investor looking at Vietnam, according to Loship CEO Trung Hoang Nguyen.

“MetaPlanet’s investment will help us build a much stronger image of Loship as a National Startup Hero. The competition will be much steeper in the long term, and we hope to pick up deep tech insights from Jaan Tallinn that can be applied to the Vietnam market,” he further opined.

The latest fundraising, which is part of the startup’s Series C round, comes just four months after its undisclosed bridge round led by Vulpes Investment Management. The new funding would fuel Loship’s path to becoming Vietnam’s leading one-hour-delivery e-commerce platform.

“We already have a winning playbook, and we look to expand it to more markets. Secondly, we know what we want to do with our product, and there are just 1 per cent of things that have been done. So, a huge portion of the funding will be poured into upgrading our app and increasing our tech capability. Also, we will ramp up marketing strategies to strengthen our foothold in the existing markets,” stated the CEO.

Founded in 2017, Loship traces its roots back to Lozi , a review app allowing users to find food, beverage, and coffee shops, before transitioning into a one-hour-delivery services platform. Loship had earlier closed its Series A and B rounds from several investors, including South Korea’s Smilegate Investment, Hana Financial Group, DTNI, Golden Gate Ventures, before announcing its Vulpes Investment Management-led bridge round in October 2020. The round was joined by DAAL Ventures and Wealth Well (Saudi Arabia-based VC Firms), Eucagi Ventures (Nigerian VC Firm), KI Group, and the vice president of Starbucks.

By Thanh Van

Korean investors join Metro Line 5

February 23, 2021 by www.vir.com.vn

Metro Line 5, phase 2, has a total length of about 14.5km, from Bay Hien intersection to the new Can Giuoc bus station

In a letter sent to the Management Authority for Urban Railways of Ho Chi Minh City (MAUR) and Ho Chi Minh City People’s Committee, Soun-young Chung, general manager of Kexim Bank’s Global Business Cooperation Division said that the bank will soon finance the pre-feasibility study.

The project will transform from official development assistance (ODA) to the public-private partnership (PPP) model.

The study is implemented on three specific aspects: engineering, financing, and legality.

Members of the research team and participating investors have extensive experience in the construction and operation of urban railway lines, including Metro Line 9 of Seoul, Korea, built under the PPP model.

On January 19, the MAUR worked with a group of investors and consulting companies from Korea.

The group consists of Kexim Bank, Hyundai Engineering Co., Ltd., Lotte Corporation, Samil PwC (finance consultant), Dohwa Engineering (engineering consultant), Sejong Corporation, and Shearman & Sterling (legal advisory), among others.

It is anticipated that the pre-feasibility study will be summited by the end of 2020.

The pre-feasibility study of phase 2 of Metro Line 5 was previously funded by the Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA). However, due to objective reasons, the ODA form cannot be implemented and is being replaced by the PPP format.

At present, KOICA is funding an urban planning research technical assistance project based on transit-oriented development (TOD) on this section.

Metro Line 5 has a total length of 23.4km separated into two phases. Phase 1, from Bay Hien intersection to Saigon Bridge, has a total length of about 8.89km and a total investment value of about $1.66 billion. Phase 2, from Bay Hien intersection to the new Can Giuoc bus station, has a total length of about 14.5km.

Funding for this project comes from the Spanish government, the Asian Development Bank (ADB), European Investment Bank (EIB), and German Reconstruction Bank (KfW).

Ho Chi Minh City is planning to construct eight metro lines with a total length of about 220km, with the total investment of nearly $25 billion. Currently, Metro Line 1 (Ben Thanh-Suoi Tien) and Line 2 (Ben Thanh-Tham Luong) have been invested in the form of ODA.

In addition to phase 2 of Metro Line 5, which is calling for investment, Ho Chi Minh City is also calling for investment in four other metro lines, including Line 2 (phase 2), 3A, 4, and 5 (phase 1).

By Truc Anh