A total of 54 new cases of COVID-19, including one imported case and 53 community cases, were confirmed on Friday evening, according to the Ministry of Health.

In the early hours of Friday morning, authorities in the capital announced lockdown procedures for the entire T6 block, asking all residents to remain in their apartments until further notice.

Facing more severe weather conditions like floods in the central region last October, the weather forecasting agencies have applied new technology to help predict and issue early warnings of typhoons five days before they make landfall and warning of tropical depression three days earlier.