Ninth and 12th graders in two districts and 25 communes, wards, and towns at high risk of COVID-19 transmission in Hanoi will stop going to offline classes, which were just resumed on December 6, and switch to online learning from Monday until further notice.

The Hanoi Department of Education and Training made the request on Sunday to urge district-level education offices and schools to report the adjustment to their local authorities for approval.

The move aims to ensure health safety for teachers and students amid rising COVID-19 case numbers in the capital city.

Hai Ba Trung and Dong Da Districts and 25 communes, wards, and towns in the city are currently classified as level-three pandemic risk, corresponding to orange zones, in the government’s four-level risk assessment scale according to a notice dated December 17 of the municipal People’s Committee.

Earlier, ninth graders in outlying Ba Vi District resumed in-person learning from November 8, while students in the same grade in 18 districts and towns returned to school from November 22, followed by 12th graders in 30 districts and towns from December 6.

About 64,000 ninth and 12th graders have attended offline classes since then, according to the Department of Education and Training.

Authorities in Hanoi had required all students to stay home and switch to remote learning since May 4 due to a serious COVID-19 outbreak.

Hanoi has documented more than 24,200 COVID-19 infections since the fourth virus wave hit Vietnam on April 27.

Over 6.8 million adults out of eight million people of the Vietnamese capital city have received at least one COVID-19 vaccine shot, with more than 5.8 million of them fully vaccinated, according to the national COVID-19 vaccination portal.

The city is carrying out vaccinations against COVID-19 for local children aged 12 to 17 until the end of the first quarter of 2022, with those from 16 to 17 years old getting the shots first.

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