Ttntag hoi an

They are the first out of the total 120 volunteers in the trials to receive the second shot, which is administered 28 days after the first one.

Since the start of the trials (March 15), 96 volunteers have been injected with the first shot and the remainder are expected to be inoculated by April 18.

In July, a mid-term report on the vaccine’s trials is planned to be done.

Covivac, which was developed by the Health Ministry’s Institute of Vaccines and Medical Biologicals, is in the first stage of clinical testing by the Hanoi Medical University’s Centre of Clinical Pharmacology.

According to Associate Professor, Dr Pham Thi Van Anh, head of the centre, 66 volunteers showed slight reactions like swelling in injected area and headache, which disappeared within 24 hours after injection without need for treatment, and no serious side effects were seen during the seven days after injection.

According to Deputy Minister of Health Tran Van Thuan, the ministry is expecting that Vietnam will have its own vaccine for use and even export between late 2021 and early 2022.

Provinces in the Central region are expected to see significant tourism growth this summer. — Photo courtesy of tuoitre.vn

The tourism industry expects to see significant growth during this peak season, especially if COVID-19 is effectively under control.

During the first days of April, the human resources department at Danang Golden Bay Hotel in Da Nang has been calling former staff and recruiting new interns to host future guests.

Business director of the hotel, Mai Thi Kim Oanh, told Tuổi Trẻ (Youth) newspaper that the hotel has received over 100 bookings for the upcoming holiday and the number of bookings continues to increase.

Even though hotel guests have a tendency to book only a few days in advance, the current growth rate is a positive sign for the industry and Oanh expects to have 60 to 80 per cent of rooms booked this holiday.

Deputy General Director of the Vietnam Tourism Joint Stock Company (Vitours) Le Tan Thanh Tung said the tourism market in the Central region will be very robust this summer. Anti-pandemic activities have seen much progress and vaccines have become more widely available.

As locals’ travel demand is significant, especially because they are not able to travel abroad, travel agencies in the Central region need to take advantage of their five-star facilities and the favourable weather to promote tourism in the summer.

“That being said, lack of quality human resources has caused stress. Many staff have been laid off due to the pandemic. It is crucial to retrain the team before the holiday to ensure service quality,” Tung said.

He added that the company has also invested in some key tours and prepared accommodation and transport packages for solo travelers and people traveling in groups.

Attractive tourism products

Truong Thi Ngoc Cam, director of the Hoi An Centre for Culture and Sports – Radio and Television, said that warm-up activities at Hoi An Old Town have gone well.

In the upcoming days, Hoi An will focus on “quintessential products” for visitors to the Old Town, organise more art performances, and make use of the central space to launch new tourism products.

Quang Nam Province’s Tourism Association and the provincial People’s Committee are planning to host charter tourists. A group of tourists, both Vietnamese living overseas and international travelers, will be transferred to Chu Lai Airport and quarantined at designated areas.

Meanwhile, the Hoi An creative start-up fund, together with many travel agencies, is working on the An Bang Beach festival to promote local seafood in early summer.

General Secretary of the Tourism Association of Quang Nam Province Nguyen Son Thuy said that travel firms in the locality have started cleaning up their facilities and are preparing to welcome guests.

“We hope to receive many visitors in July. If the pandemic is under control, the tourism industry in the Central region will be blooming again,” he added.

VNS

Located in Cu Lao Village, Hung Hoi Commune, Vinh Loi District, the pagoda was built in 1860 and renovated in 2001. Ghositaram has the typical architecture of a Khmer pagoda, consisting of a central chamber, a vihara, an auditorium, a tower, a school, and the monks’ residence. (Photo: VNP/VNA)

The Pagoda’s roof contains several layers overlaying each other, forming a sharp top similar to that of a tower.  (Photo: VNP/VNA)

Time has created an august and antiquity atmosphere in the pagoda. (Photo: VNP/VNA)

Inside the central chamber. (Photo: VNP/VNA)

Lacquered pillars with sophisticated patterns. (Photo: VNP/VNA)

Statues of scared animals at the pagoda. (Photo: VNP/VNA)

Exquisite patterns and reliefs at Ghositaram Pagoda. (Photo: VNP/VNA)

A relief tells the life of Buddha. (Photo: VNP/VNA)

A gong at Ghositaram Pagoda. (Photo: VNP/VNA)

VNP/VNA

Despite being constantly on the move and staying in makeshift accommodations, construction workers in Ho Chi Minh City still move forward and are ready for whatever comes next.

Makeshift shanties erected at a construction site, secluded at a swamp next to the Saigon River, along Ven Ho Trung Tam Street in Thu Duc City, are where Nguyen Van Kiet, a 29-year-old construction worker, and more than a dozen co-workers have called home for the past several weeks.

The site is filled with noise and dust, and piles of construction materials are strewn across the area.

With walls temporarily built from corrugated iron and floors from planks of wood, the shanties, which double as the workers’ living and sleeping space, will be removed as construction nears completion.

These makeshift accommodations lack the basics like a kitchen and toilet.

Construction is ongoing at a building site in Ho Chi Minh City. Photo : Cong Trieu / Tuoi Tre

On the day a Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper correspondent visited the under-construction site, more than 50 workers rode off on their motorbikes, while the remaining 50 workers trudged back to the ramshackle sheds after a long working day.

Kiet, who hails from An Giang Province in the Mekong Delta, hummed a Vietnamese tune about the life of masons with his phone before taking a night’s rest.

“We masons build people’s houses, but just keep relocating and don’t have a place of our own,” his co-workers cracked a joke based on the lyrics.

Kiet used to work at a footwear factory, but the monthly salary of VND6 million (US$259) was barely enough for him to support his wife and young child.

Six months ago, he ended up in Ho Chi Minh City, where he began work in construction but until now has still struggled to adjust to the new ‘nomadic’ life.

“I couldn’t sleep sound for half a year now,” Kiet said.

As the contractors do not provide the workers with room or board and many of them are with their wives and young children, they cook their own meals and live in unsanitary conditions.

The women also help around with less physically demanding chores on the site.

The makeshift shanty, built from leaves and corrugated iron at a building site in Thu Duc City, Ho Chi Minh City, is where Nguyen Quang Hieu, Nguyen Van Kiet and their team live and work. Photo : Cong Trieu / Tuoi Tre

Construction workers typically try to get as much work done as they can in the morning so they can avoid more strenuous work if the heat gets more intense later in the day.

Though staying on the site spares the workers room rent and allows them extra payment from the contractors, many find the conditions quite tough.

Tram Ngoc, from Tra Vinh Province, also located in the Mekong Delta, said extreme weather conditions can also have an effect on construction workers; scorching heat can add to their exhaustion, while windy conditions can also prove difficult.

His bedding and clothing items as well as makeshift ‘bed’ placed atop bricks all got soaked during an unseasonal downpour last week, leaving him struggling to stay dry under the porch of a household nearby the whole night.

“The heat is unpleasant but still bearable. What I dread most is unseasonal downpours that catch us off guard at midnight,” Ngoc said, adding construction materials drenched in rainwater may become unusable for the following day.

“I can’t take on the physically taxing work the next day if I go without sleep during the night.”

Theft is another of his concerns.

Ngoc, who has been on the job for more than 10 years, racked his brain trying to remember how many times he had his phones pinched.

“Thieves sneak in when we are sound asleep on breezy nights,” he said.

“Most masons have lost at least one or two phones.”

Ngoc added five such gadgets at a building site he was working at were stolen at one time, while he once had a phone he had just bought for more than VND3 million ($130) nicked.

“I’ve saved every hard-earned penny,” he said.

“It really hurt.”

Finding joy

Kiet’s ‘housemates’ are Nguyen Quang Hieu, 24, also from An Giang Province, and his 18-year-old wife, Le Thi Thao Nhi.

Hieu and his younger brother took up the construction job from their parents, who have been on the move between work sites in Ho Chi Minh City and its neighbors, Dong Nai and Binh Duong Provinces, over the past 20 years.

The young couple are hard at work to save up for themselves and take care of their baby of less than three months old.

“Our baby is doing fine,” Nhi said.

“I usually put on extra covers to keep my child from the sun or winds.”

After a long working day, what Hieu and others are most eager for is fishing at the swamps nearby, which gives the young men something to do in their spare time and some fish to eat.

Hieu’s wife also goes to the riverbanks overgrown with wild morning glory to pick some for meals.

Despite physically exhausting work and tough living conditions, Hieu and his team always try to find a reason to smile.

Nguyen Quang Hieu, a young construction worker, poses with his wife and their baby inside the shanty at a building site in Thu Duc City, Ho Chi Minh City. Photo: Cong Trieu / Tuoi Tre

Hieu would follow his parents to building sites during his childhood, always moving to other places after construction finished.

The boy, due to such mobility and insufficient livelihood, could not make it to school.

Though unable to write, Hieu can read and loves doing karaoke, which he said helps himself and his co-workers unwind and have some fun during their casual gatherings on the weekend.

The man joked that what he likes most is no one complains about them making noise.

The man recently bought a loudspeaker for VND15 million ($648) by installments.

“I try to refrain from hanging around in order not to spend money,” Hieu shared, pointing to the brand-new device placed in the distance.

“This speaker is quite expensive, but helps alleviate our exhaustion and keep our spirit high.”

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Hundreds of thousands of Hindu devotees flocked on Monday to take a holy bath in India’s Ganges river, even as the nation racked up the world’s highest tally of new daily coronavirus infections.

With 168,912 new cases, India accounts for one in six of all new infections globally, although the figure is still well below the U.S. peak of nearly 300,000 new cases on Jan. 8.

In the northern city of Haridwar, nearly a million devotees thronged the banks of the Ganges, a river many Hindus consider holy, to participate in the months-long ‘Kumbh Mela’ or pitcher festival.

“The crowd here is surging…the police are continuously appealing to people to maintain social distancing,” police official Sanjay Gunjyal told Reuters at the site.

By mid-morning a million people had taken a dip in the river, believed to wash away one’s sins.

As India’s second wave of infections builds, with fewer than 4% estimated to have been vaccinated among a population of 1.4 billion, experts say the situation could have a long way to go before it starts getting better.

“After cases declined in January-February, we were very comfortable,” said a panel of high court judges in the western state of Gujarat, calling on authorities to take urgent steps to rein in the outbreak.

“Almost everyone forgot that there was ever corona,” added the panel, headed by Chief Justice Vikram Nath.

A full opening of the economy from last year’s crippling lockdown, coupled with the mass religious festivals and political rallies in states heading to elections have fuelled the crisis.

Monday’s new infections carried India past Brazil for a tally of 13.53 million, data compiled by Reuters shows, ranking it the second-most infected country after the United States, with 31.2 million.

Tally feared to double in two months

India’s tally is on course to double in two months, according to estimates based on data from the Johns Hopkins University Center for Systems Science and Engineering.

Yet authorities appeared unwilling or unable to stop events that could lead to a calamitous spread of the disease.

People are seen at a fish market, amidst the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), in Mumbai, India, April 12, 2021. Photo: Reuters

Thousands of people are attending political rallies in four big states set for elections this month, including two events on Monday in the eastern state of West Bengal, where Prime Minister Narendra Modi is due to speak.

“With 1.2 million active cases, and the daily number reaching 200,000, it’s bizarre to have poll rallies and a full Kumbh Mela,” political commentator Shekhar Gupta said on Twitter.

Officials and experts said authorities had underestimated the resilience of the virus, believing they had beaten it after daily cases fell below 10,000 in early February.

Officials in the worst-hit state of Maharashtra, home to the financial capital of Mumbai, said they were considering a broader lockdown this week after large closures at the weekend.

“It is necessary to break the cycle (of infections),” said a senior state official who sought anonymity. “We are working on identifying industries and services that need to be exempted.”

The rupee fell to its lowest in nearly eight months and Mumbai’s benchmark index tanked as much as 3.7% in the worst session in more than six weeks.

India’s economy has been limping back to recovery after last year’s hard lockdown caused the deepest contraction in decades.