What you need to know in Vietnam today:

Politics

-- Vietnam opposes China's military drill in the former's Hoang Sa (Paracel) archipelago in the East Vietnam Sea, Le Thi Thu Hang, spokesperson of the Vietnamese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said at a press briefing on Thursday. China announced on Wednesday that ships would be banned from the area from Friday to Tuesday.

COVID-19 Updates

-- Vietnam added 4,009 community cases on Friday morning, taking the national tally to 189,066 patients, including 58,040 recoveries and 2,720 deaths, according to the Ministry of Health.

-- A batch of Remdesivir vials weighing 711kg landed at Tan Son Nhat International Airport in Ho Chi Minh City from India on Thursday night. This is part of the 500,000 vials Vietnam's Vingroup bought from Cipla Ltd., a leading pharmaceutical company in India, to donate to the Ministry of Health for treating severe COVID-19 patients.

-- Hanoi reported 21 more coronavirus infections on Friday morning, bringing its caseload to 1,559 patients in this ongoing flare-up.

Society

-- Police in Tay Ninh Province, located in southern Vietnam, have a arrested the director of a local company and his accomplices in the smuggling of over 170 metric tons of sugar into Vietnam from Cambodia.

-- The Ho Chi Minh City People's Committee has approved a relief package of VND900 billion (US$39 million) for poor workers impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Sports

-- Lionel Messi will leave Barcelona even though both sides have reached consensus on a new contract, Reuters cited the Spanish club as saying on Thursday.

World News

-- The United Nations is concerned about situations where COVID-19 vaccines have gone unused, sayng it can help with vaccine distribution at the request of governments, Reuters reported.

-- "South Korea plans to invest 2.2 trillion won ($1.9 billion) to become one of the world's five largest COVID-19 vaccine manufacturing bases by 2025, its President Moon Jae-in said on Thursday," Reuters said.