Here are today’s leading news stories:

Politics

-- Vietnam’s lawmaking National Assembly is willing to support and create favorable conditions for the government to effectively implement countermeasures against the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, NA Chairwoman Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan said during the opening of the NA Standing Committee’s 43rd session in Hanoi on Monday.

Society

-- Eleven COVID-19 patients in Vietnam are now in a worse health condition, three of whom are in a very serious state, the Ministry of Health said on Monday, adding that 18 patients have tested negative for the virus for the first time since receiving treatment.

-- The Ministry of Transport has asked all airlines to stop transporting overseas Vietnamese to Tan Son Nhat Airport in Ho Chi Minh City from March 23 to 31 to prevent crowding at quarantine facilities in the metropolis.

-- Authorities in Hanoi have quarantined 64 people who arrived in the capital from abroad since March 7 after they have had such symptoms as fever and coughing.

-- Members of the People’s Council in the southern province of Binh Phuoc on Monday donated VND3 billion (US$128,700) to the fight against the COVID-19 epidemic in Vietnam.

-- One person went missing and two others were in a critical condition after an oil tanker caught fire in the southern province of Dong Nai on Monday evening.

-- The Vietnamese naval force has supplied a total of five million cubic meters of fresh water to residents in the Mekong Delta, where drought and saline intrusion have been extremely serious in the past few months.

Business

-- Trung Nam Group is expected to commence the construction of a VND14 trillion ($601 million) solar power plant in the south-central province of Ninh Thuan in the second quarter of 2020. The project will be Southeast Asia’s largest solar power plant with the capacity of 450 megawatts.

World News

-- The novel coronavirus has infected nearly 378,500 and killed more than 16,400 people globally as of Tuesday morning, according to Ministry of Health statistics. Over 101,600 cases have recovered.    

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