Here are today’s leading news stories:

COVID-19 Updates

-- Vietnam’s Ministry of Health documented 8,467 new COVID-19 cases on Saturday evening, raising the country’s tally to 1,018,346, with 858,054 recoveries and 23,018 deaths. Ho Chi Minh City recorded the highest daily count with 1,240 infections.

-- The Ho Chi Minh City Department of Health has asked the municipal steering committee for COVID-19 prevention and control to reopen district-level quarantine facilities and some makeshift hospitals to cope with a recent increase in local infections.

-- About four percent of children infected with COVID-19 in Vietnam develop severe symptoms, while about 0.5 percent are in critical conditions, according to the Ministry of Health.

Society

-- A 31-year-old police officer from the Central Highlands province of Lam Dong has been suspended from work after he was caught on CCTV pointing a gun at a health worker following an argument at a local hospital.

-- A national ceremony to commemorate people who have lost their lives to COVID-19 in Vietnam will take place in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City on the evening of November 19 and will be aired on national television, the Vietnam Fatherland Front said at a meeting on Saturday.

-- The Ho Chi Minh City Department of Industry and Trade has proposed that eateries across the city be allowed to sell beer and alcohol after the service was piloted in Thu Duc City and District 7 amid COVID-19 over the past weeks.

Business

-- Vietnam is expected to reduce its rice paddy farms by nearly 350,000 hectares and increase industrial land by 120,000 hectares by 2030, according to a resolution recently passed by the National Assembly.

Lifestyle

-- The Mekong Delta province of Ben Tre welcomed the first group of tourists on Saturday after tourism services were suspended for several months due to the COVID-19 pandemic.  

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