Vietnam reports 72,556 new COVID-19 cases

The new infections, logged in 62 localities nationwide, included 72,555 domestically transmitted and one imported.

The Vietnamese capital Hanoi remained the epidemic hotspot with 7,734 new cases on Friday, followed by the central Nghe An province with 3,226 and the central highlands Dak Lak province with 3,099.

On the same day, health authorities also documented 13,498 COVID-19 cases detected earlier in the northern Vinh Phuc province.

The infections brought the country's total tally to 9,650,663, with 42,526 deaths. Nationwide, as many as 7,606,476 COVID-19 patients, or 79 percent of the infections, have so far recovered.

More than 206.3 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines have been administered in the country, including 189.2 million shots on people aged 18 and above, said the ministry.

Vietnam has by far gone through four coronavirus waves of increasing scale, complication, and infectivity. As of Friday, it has registered over 9.6 million locally transmitted COVID-19 cases since the start of the current wave in April 2021, said the ministry.