A medical worker collects samples of a man in Dien Bien Province for Covid-19 testing. The Ministry of Health confirmed 24 additional locally-infected cases of Covid-19 this morning, May 21 – PHOTO: VNA

HCMC – The Ministry of Health confirmed 24 additional locally-infected cases of Covid-19 this morning, May 21, with 15 cases in Bac Giang, six in Dien Bien, two in Hai Duong, and one in Bac Ninh.

These new infections brought the community transmission tally in Vietnam during the latest Covid-19 resurgence since April 27 to 1,786 cases in 30 provinces and cities.

Yesterday evening, the ministry also announced the country’s 40th Covid-19 death, a 70-year-old woman in Hanoi. She died of septic shock, Covid-19, hypertension, diabetes, among others. She was admitted to the National Hospital for Tropical Diseases’ Department of Infection Control on April 3 and was confirmed as positive for Covid-19 on May 5. She died at 7 a.m. on May 20.

In related news, the health ministry yesterday decided to extend the quarantine period imposed on the Kim Chung facility of the National Hospital for Tropical Diseases in Hanoi’s Dong Anh District for seven more days until 8 a.m. on May 26.

Early this month, after detecting new coronavirus infections, the Kim Chung facility was immediately put under lockdown starting from 8 a.m. on May 5 to 8 a.m. on May 19 to prevent the spread of the disease.

In another development, given the complicated Covid-19 situation facing Bac Giang Province, it decided to suspend all passenger transport services starting today to contain the spread of the virus. Up to now, the province has reported 683 community-infected cases in the latest wave, making it the biggest coronavirus hotspot in the country.