What you need to know today in Vietnam:

COVID-19 Updates

-- The Ministry of Health reported 425 new local coronavirus cases on Friday morning, including 350 patients in Ho Chi Minh City, taking the caseload to 24,810 infections. Recoveries and deaths remain at 8,950 and 105, respectively.

-- An additional 700,000 AstraZeneca vaccine shots have arrived in Vietnam from Japan, according to the health ministry. This is the third batch of nearly two million AstraZeneca jabs Japan has donated to the Southeast Asian country since June 16.

-- The Ho Chi Minh City People's Committee issued a document on Thursday detailing how to quarantine COVID-19 patients' direct contacts at home.

-- Authorities suspended Beesco Vina Co. Ltd., which employs almost 5,000 workers, in southern Binh Phuoc Province on Thursday after the detection of a coronavirus case at the company.

Society

-- Interprovincial travels are placed on strict restrictions in Vietnam as commuters are required to present papers showing they are negative for the novel coronavirus to be able to continue their journeys.

Business

-- Vietnam's Ministry of Industry and Trade said on Thursday evening that it would levy anti-dumping taxes of 39.63-68.5 percent on sorbitol imports from China, India, and Indonesia, pending an investigation that will end in the third quarter of this year. Sorbitol is used in industry, medicine production, and food.

Sports

-- Team Vietnam will leave for the Olympic Games in Tokyo, Japan on July 18, with 18 athletes, two doctors, four officials, one reporter, and other coaches and experts.

-- The 2021 Vietnam Professional Basketball League will kick off in Nha Trang City under Khanh Hoa Province on Saturday despite a serious COVID-19 outbreak in Vietnam. 

-- Organizers have decided to suspend football leagues indefinitely over rising coronavirus infections in Vietnam. They had planned to resume the leagues on July 31.

World News

-- "Pfizer Inc plans to ask U.S. regulators to authorize a booster dose of its COVID-19 vaccine within the next month, the drugmaker's top scientist said on Thursday, based on evidence of greater risk of reinfection six months after inoculation and the spread of the highly contagious Delta variant," Reuters reported.

-- All nine people onboard were found dead in the crash of an airplane outside Orebro, Sweden, on Thursday, Reuters quoting Swedish police as saying.

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