Here are today’s leading news stories:

COVID-19 Updates

-- Vietnam’s Ministry of Health documented 5,490 COVID-19 cases, including 2,723 in Ho Chi Minh City, on Saturday evening, raising the national tally to 803,202, with 664,938 recoveries and 19,601 deaths.

-- The United States has provided Vietnam with an additional 1.5 million doses of Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine via the COVAX Facility. The vaccine batch arrived in the Southeast Asian country on Saturday night.

-- Authorities in Hanoi brought over 1,000 people who came into contact with COVID-19 cases linked to Viet Duc University Hospital to quarantine facilities on Saturday night and early on Sunday morning.

Society

-- Police officers were mobilized to help nearly 8,000 people travel from the southern provinces of Dong Nai and Binh Duong to their hometowns in the central region and Central Highlands on Saturday night.

-- The Ministry of Public Security is expected to integrate information on vaccine green passes on chip-based ID cards of residents in the coming time.

-- The Civil Aviation Authority of Vietnam has asked authorities in Hanoi to allow the resumption of domestic flights to and from Noi Bai International Airport from October 5.

-- Two people were found dead while harvesting rice in the northern province of Hai Duong on Saturday, with authorities believing they had been fatally electrocuted following a problem along the 35kV power line.

-- Police in Ho Chi Minh City have arrested two employees of the medical centers in Binh Tan and Tan Phu Districts for illegally selling Molnupiravir, an antiviral drug, which is used in the treatment of COVID-19 patients.

Business

-- Vietnam and the U.S. have reached an agreement on illegal logging and timber trade that will prevent hefty tariffs on Vietnamese timber exports, according to the Vietnamese Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development.

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