HCMC urges vaccination to reduce Covid deaths

Most fatalities recorded across the city lately are among those over 65, suffering chronic diseases and have yet to be vaccinated, Nguyen Thi Huynh Mai, the department’s office chief, said Monday.

Hoang Tung, chairman of Thu Duc City, said “more than 60 percent of Covid-19 deaths in the city are those that had not been jabbed, and either had underlying health problems or not.”

Thu Duc has counted more than 60,000 people in the high-risk group.

Currently, the city has already started offering booster shots for more than 2,000 people and will speed up the inoculation rate of this third dose.

At the same time, it is reviewing all people who have not received any vaccine shots, he said, adding authorities have faced difficulties in calling high-risk groups to get immunized against Covid-19.

In many families, there are elderly people with serious health conditions, including some who had suffered strokes, and others that are bedridden. Their children or grandchildren, however, are afraid the vaccine could cause them dangerous complications.

For that reason, many have agreed to sign the form to confirm they would not have their parents or grandparents vaccinated.

But those elderly people would have the highest chance to get infected if not fully immunized, because it is their family members that could transfer the virus to them via their daily communications with others, the Thu Duc chairman stressed.

The health sector in HCMC is currently been focusing on high-risk groups in its Covid-19 fight to reduce related deaths.

It has made a list of all people over 65 with underlying diseases for regular testing to timely treat them should they get infected.

The city has vaccinated 6.8 million people with two doses and has already offered the third shot to 4,500 in the past three days.

As of Monday, the southern metropolis had recorded more than 488,100 cases and 18,852 deaths in the fourth wave alone that hit Vietnam in late April.

In the past week, the city has averagely recorded 70 Covid-19 fatalities per day.