What you need to know in Vietnam today:

Politics

-- Vietnam's National Assembly Chairman Vuong Dinh Hue expressed his hope that the United Nations will further support his country in its fight against COVID-19 and post-pandemic economic recovery at a reception for outgoing UN Resident Coordinator in Vietnam Kamal Malhotra in Hanoi on Thursday, according to the Vietnam News Agency.

Society

-- Over one million AstraZeneca vaccine shots are scheduled to arrive in Vietnam on Friday, a source told Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper. About 12 million vaccine doses will land in the country in August and September, the same source said.

-- Authorities sectioned off a 400-meter stretch on Doi Can Street in Ba Dinh District, Hanoi on Thursday evening following the detection of 16 COVID-19 cases there.

-- Vietnam will try its best to roll out the first locally-made coronavirus vaccine in September, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh said at a meeting on Thursday.

-- A 96-year-old woman was discharged from the hospital on Thursday after she beat COVID-19, doctors in Binh Phuoc Province in southern Vietnam said the same day. 

-- Officials on Phu Quoc Island off Kien Giang Province in southern Vietnam have allowed six French students to leave the island for Ho Chi Minh City, where they caught a flight back to their home country, following a request by the French Consulate General in Ho Chi Minh City. The island has been put under movement restrictions over COVID-19 for weeks.

-- Ho Chi Minh City authorities are considering allowing recovered COVID-19 patients to participate in pandemic control efforts, according to a document signed by city chairman Nguyen Thanh Phong.

Education

-- K-12 schools in Ho Chi Minh City are expected to organize the opening of the 2021-22 academic year virtually in mid-September, Nguyen Van Hieu, deputy director of the municipal Department of Education and Training, said on Thursday.

World News

-- Five cities in Hubei Province, China have declared 'red alerts' after torrential rain left 21 people dead and forced the evacuation of nearly 6,000 people, Reuters quoted state media as saying.

-- "Six people, including a child, were killed in a mass shooting in the city of Plymouth in southwest England on Thursday evening, in an incident described by the British Home Secretary as 'shocking'," Reuters reported.