Here are today's leading news stories:

COVID-19 Updates

-- The Vietnamese Ministry of Health announced an additional 57 COVID-19 cases, including 56 community infections in Bac Ninh, Bac Giang, Lang Son, and Hai Duong on Thursday morning, raising the national tally to 7,870 patients with 3,085 recoveries and 49 virus-related deaths.

-- The Health Department of southern Long An Province confirmed two community cases on Thursday morning, all linked to patients No. 7,176 and 7,177.

-- The National Steering Committee for COVID-19 Prevention and Control has urged the Ministry of Health to promulgate a new testing process for both Vietnamese and foreigners who have been vaccinated against COVID-19 to shorten their quarantine duration at centralized facilities to one week.

Society

-- A 63-year-old woman who is a relative of a patient at Ho Chi Minh City’s Pham Ngoc Thach Hospital sustained a traumatic brain injury after being hit by a falling tree branch while walking on the hospital's premises on Wednesday afternoon.

-- Doctors in north-central Thanh Hoa Province have removed a huge hairball from the stomach of an 11-year-old girl who had been eating her own hairs since childhood.

-- Police in southern An Giang Province have arrested a 26-year-old man on charges of fraud after he used Facebook and Zalo accounts to appropriate more than VND2 billion (US$87,000) under the guise of a frozen food dealer since 2020.

-- Authorities in Binh Thanh District, Ho Chi Minh City have cordoned off and fumigated Alley 53 on Dien Bien Phu Street after six suspected COVID-19 cases were identified in the neighborhood.

-- A 36-year-old man in the northern province of Hung Yen has been sentenced to five years in prison for the illegal possession of 780 kilograms of pangolin scales.

-- Police in the southern Vietnamese province of Dong Nai have initiated legal proceedings against two people, who are the owners of Son Minh Pharmaceutical Company, Man Son Minh Pharmacy, and Si Man Pharmacy, for attempting to evade corporate income tax.

-- Da Nang City will grant prefential loans of up to VND100 million ($4,354) per person to workers of tourism companies that have been impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. The borrowers will be subject to an annual interest rate of eight percent without mortaged assets.

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