HANOI, March 4 (Xinhua) -- The daily COVID-19 tally in Vietnam surged to a new high of 125,587 cases on Friday, up 6,797 cases from the previous record on Thursday, according to its Ministry of Health.
The new infections, logged in 63 localities nationwide, included 125,568 domestically transmitted and 19 imported cases.
Vietnamese capital Hanoi remained the epidemic hotspot with 21,395 cases on Friday, also its new daily record, followed by central Nghe An province with 6,657 cases, and northern Bac Ninh province with 6,011 cases.
On the same day, health authorities also documented 48,044 COVID-19 cases detected earlier in northern provinces of Bac Ninh and Quang Ninh.
The infections brought the total tally to 4,059,262 with 40,644 deaths. Nationwide, as many as 2,589,436 COVID-19 patients, or 64 percent of the infections, have so far recovered.
Over 196.3 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines have been administered in the country, including 179.5 million shots on people aged 18 and above, said the ministry.
Vietnam has by far gone through four coronavirus waves of increasing scale, complication, and infectivity. As of Friday, it has registered over 4 million locally transmitted COVID-19 cases since the start of the current wave in April 2021, said the health ministry. ■