The order was made following a recent meeting with local leaders on COVID-19 prevention and control.

The Government chief urged subordinate levels to administer second jabs all adolescents aged between 12 and 17 in January 2022, and booster shots to people aged 18 and above in the first quarter next year.

Pham also required subordinate levels to actively make plan for vaccinating children from 5-11 years old against COVID-19 in line with recommendations of the World Health Organization (WHO).

Given complex evolution of the pandemic, he called for avoiding negligence, closely monitoring the pandemic situation, early detecting new variants and paying attention to the pandemic prevention work at urban areas and industrial parks.

The Ministry of Transport and relevant ministries and agencies were tasked to make continue implementation of a plan on resumption of international air routes.

According to the Ministry of Health, as of December 2, a total of 141,083,958 doses of COVID-19 vaccines had been administered, with over 63.3 million people now fully inoculated.

The nation has documented 1,588,335 coronavirus infections so far, including 1,173,484 recoveries and 30,251 deaths.