HANOI, March 9 (Xinhua) -- Daily COVID-19 tally in Vietnam rose to a new high of 164,596 cases on Wednesday, up 2,161 cases from the previous record on Tuesday, according to its Ministry of Health.
The new infections, logged in 63 localities nationwide, included 164,576 domestically transmitted and 20 imported.
Vietnamese capital Hanoi remained the epidemic hotspot with 31,365 cases on Wednesday, followed by central Nghe An province with 10,296 cases, and northern Bac Ninh province with 9,068 cases.
On the same day, health authorities also documented 100,567 COVID-19 cases detected earlier in three provinces of Nghe An, Bac Giang and Quang Ninh.
The infections brought the total tally to 5,042,036 with 41,086 deaths. Nationwide, as many as 2,855,214 COVID-19 patients, or 57 percent of the infections, have so far recovered.
More than 198.6 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines have been administered in the country, including 181.6 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 Wednesday, it has registered over 5 million locally transmitted COVID-19 cases since the start of the current wave in April 2021, said the health ministry. ■