With the COVID-19 pandemic leaving many people in HCM City poor and hungry, a small group of friends in District 10 have cooked up a wonderful initiative: making food and distributing it to people they see on the street.

Land acquisition, compensation payments and resettlement for affected households should be completed by the end of July so that construction on HCM City’s second metro line can begin, city officials have said.

Cities and provinces across Việt Nam are preparing for the high school graduation exam, which will be held on Wednesday.

Since the pandemic hit Việt Nam in January last year, the country has confirmed 20,261 cases - 18,403 locally transmitted infections and 1,858 imported from overseas.

Việt Nam’s national COVID-19 caseload reached nearly 20,000 today, with increases driven by a major jump in HCM City and the presence of highly transmissible Delta coronavirus variant.

The Civil Aviation Authority of Vietnam (CAAV) has sent a document to the Transport Ministry proposing the suspension of flights to and from Thọ Xuân airport in Thanh Hóa Province, and flights between HCM City and Phú Bài in Thừa Thiên-Huế Province and between HCM City and Chu Lai in Quảng Nam Province.

Authorities in the southern Bà Rịa-Vũng Tàu Province have called on all people who had visited a number of wholesale markets in the province and HCM City to self-quarantine at home and contact the nearest medical establishments to make health declarations.