A woman in Hà Nội receives a COVID-19 vaccine. Hà Nội. — VNA/VNS Photo

HÀ NỘI — Almost one million adults were vaccinated against COVID-19 in Hà Nội over the weekend as the capital city is ramping up inoculation efforts, according to the city’s Health Department.

The department said 411,000 injections were administered on Saturday and 537,828 on Sunday.

This was the highest number of people vaccinated since the city began its push to inoculate all adults, and was almost eight times higher than most injections given each day last month.

Along with the city’s health workers, about 400,000 medical staff from 11 northern provinces supported Hà Nội in both testing and vaccinations.

According to the department, a number of districts had basically completed the vaccination plan for the first dose including Ba Đình, Hoàn Kiếm, Sóc Sơn, Thường Tín, Hoài Đức and Bắc Từ Liêm.

The Ministry of Health will provide Hà Nội with a further 1.5 million doses to ensure that by September 15, it would complete first injection for all adults.

Regarding COVID-19 tests, on Sunday, the city took 760,000 samples, of which more than 500,000 for PCR pooled-testing and 245,000 for antigen rapid testing.

The total number of samples taken from September 9 to 12 was more than 2 million, of which 10 PCR pool samples and 33 antigen rapid test samples were positive for SARS-CoV-2.

At present, the municipal authority asked districts that have run out of vaccines provided to increase testing.

The department recommended that localities review those who need testing to ensure quick detection of cases in the community.

For children under 12 years of age, testing was not required, except for those with COVID-19 symptoms.

The city asked the department to quickly distribute vaccines to districts when the Ministry of Health receives new sources.

The vaccination and large-scale testing plan was announced by Hà Nội People’s Committee on September 8 and was put into action the next day.

Committee Chairman Chu Ngọc Anh said that by September 15, the city had three important goals of testing and screening 100 per cent of the capital's population, completing the first dose vaccination for all adults if there were enough vaccines, and create opportunities to ease social distancing for socio-economic development. — VNS