Dong Nai Party Secretary Nguyen Hong Linh said at a Covid-19 prevention meeting that the province will apply the "vaccine citizens" policy, allowing only people who've got two Covid-19 vaccine doses to go out on the streets and work once social distancing measures are eased.

With a population of more than 3.7 million, of whom 2.3 million are 18 years old or older, Dong Nai needs more than 4.7 million doses for its mass vaccination program.

The province, home to many industrial zones, had inoculated 960,262 people as of Sunday, with 62,000 having got two doses.

Linh said the province’s vaccination rate was still low, compared to other localities.

Currently, the province's vaccine administration capacity is 70,000-80,000 doses per day. In the next 10 days, the health sector needs to mobilize forces to improve this capacity and inject one million doses per day, ensuring that all adults are vaccinated, Linh said.

"Dong Nai is determined that by September 15, all people over 18 years old would have received at least one dose of the vaccine. This will help the province reach community immunity early, limit infections, and reduce severe cases and deaths," he said.

He said the vaccination campaign needs to focus more on the workforce so that production can resume once the province relaxes restrictions.

By mid-September, the province would have gone 66 days under Directive 16, which requires every resident to stay at home and only go out for food, medical treatment or work at agencies allowed to operate.

In the ongoing Covid-19 wave that started late April, Dong Nai has recorded 29,610 cases, most of them in its capital Bien Hoa Town and the three districts of Vinh Cuu, Nhon Trach and Trang Bom.

Its mass testing campaign in the past two weeks has detected more than 5,500 infections in the community.

According to the municipal Health Department, the province has basically put the outbreak under control and most clusters have been contained within hamlets and residential areas.

However, it has also warned that from now until September 15, the number of new infections is likely to remain high because many clusters are in densely populated boarding houses where the risk of the virus spreading is high.