Mr. Nguyen Hong Tam (Deputy Director in charge of the Ho Chi Minh City Center for Disease Control – HCDC), said the above at a press conference on epidemic prevention on the afternoon of February 14.

Specifically, all children aged 5-11 living in the city will be vaccinated.

It is expected that the first and second vaccination campaign for children will take place within 30 days, with the interval between the two vaccinations guided by the Ministry of Health.

Mr. Tam did not say whether the city had surveyed the opinions of young parents of this age group about Covid vaccination and what percentage of families agreed.

According to him, children going back to school will have a huge potential risk of infection.

Thus, Ho Chi Minh City is the first locality to determine the number of children aged 5-11 eligible for Covid-19 vaccination.

On February 9, the Ministry of Health said it had surveyed more than 415,000 parents in 63 provinces and cities, with more than 60% agreeing to be vaccinated, 1.9% agreeing, 29.1% considering, 7.6% agreeing.

Ho Chi Minh City is the first locality in the country to organize Covid-19 vaccination for children over 12 years old.

Regarding the opinion that children infected with Covid-19 will be milder than adults, Ms. Nguyen Thi Huynh Mai (Chief of Office of the Ho Chi Minh City Department of Health) said that medical experts in the world and in the city all commented `when

`Through monitoring infected cases, it can be seen that the rate of severe illness and death in children is not as high as that of adults. However, we need to be careful because children with underlying diseases can still die when they get sick.