Chairing an online meeting of National Steering Committee on COVID-19 Prevention and Control with the 63 localities nationwide, Prime Minister Chinh said COVID-19 has still developed complicatedly in the world with the occurrence of SARS-CoV-2 Omicron sub-lineage BA.5 in many countries.

He said it is crucial to control the pandemic to create favourable conditions for socio-economic development, national protection and the improvement of people’s living conditions.

He stressed the need to give top priority to the ensuring of people’s lives and health, and to consider the pandemic prevention and control as the common task of the whole political system.

The Government leader highlighted the need to maintain three key pillars in COVID-19 fight – testing, quarantine and treatment.

A report from the committee showed that since the beginning of this year, more than 9 million infections have been reported, including 8.3 million recoveries.

As of July 7, 233 million COVID-19 vaccin༺es doses had been administered, with about 80% of the adults receiving at least two doses, exceeding the WHO targets by 30%./.