Hanoi (VNA) – Deputy Prime Minister Vu Duc Dam hasrequired southern localities to speed up COVID-19 vaccination in the next two,three weeks while continuing to keep pandemic prevention measures in firmplace.

The Deputy PM, who is deputy head of the National Steering Committeefor COVID-19 Prevention and Control, made the instruction at an onlineconference on October 26.

He assigned the Ministry of Education and Training to provide specificguidelines to localities in re-opening schools in a flexible manner.

Local administrations reported that the biggest difficulty forthem at present is the management of people returning from pandemic-hit areas.They said many cases of COVID-19 have been detected among those people.

The Health Ministry has guided localities in how to deal with those cases,including quarantine, testing, health monitoring and measures to prevent thespread of the virus.

While OVID-19 outbreaks have been basically contained across thecountry and life in many areas have gradually returned to the new normal, thenumber of community infections has shown signs of increasing in the past week.

Therefore, the Health Ministry warned of the possible resurgence of thepandemic anytime and anywhere, particularly areas with low vaccine coverage andlarge movement./.