On Sunday 2,805 people were hospitalized and 2,936 were discharged, and as of Monday 1,855 people were on ventilators compared to 1,918 two days earlier.

"After a very long time the number of hospitalizations is lower than the number of discharges while the number of deaths and number of serious patients have also decreased," Pham Duc Hai, deputy head of the Ho Chi Minh City Steering Committee for Covid-19 prevention and control, told a city meeting on Monday.

The number of fatalities dropped to 122 on Monday from 140, 123 and 131 the three previous days.

"These are very optimistic signs for pandemic control in HCMC", Hai said.

In the ongoing Covid wave that hit Vietnam in April, HCMC has been the epicenter with nearly 375,800 infections, or almost half of the nation’s tally, and has had more than 100 days of various levels of lockdowns.

The city has administered at least one shot of a vaccine to more than 95 percent of people aged over 18 and is speeding up work to fully immunize all adults.

As of Sunday, 9.6 million doses have been given, with more than 2.8 million people getting two shots.

The city is finalizing measures to ensure Covid safety and socio-economic recovery as it lifts the lockdown on Oct. 1.