As people in HCMC are ordered to take shelter in place, soldiers are in charge of buying and delivering food and essential products. 

A group of soldiers pick veggies at a supermarket in Binh Thanh District on Wednesday. They buy products as ordered by local residents via local forces in Ho Chi Minh City.

"Every day we receive around 300-500 orders from more than 20,000 people and with help from soldiers, goods will be delivered faster," said Cao Thi Hien, chair of the Women’s Union in the district’s Ward 11.

Private first class Luu Chi Long, 21, checks an order.

"I have gone grocery shopping for two days now and in most cases, people order essential products so it is easy for me to pick up the goods," he said.

Two soldiers of the 5th Infantry Division of the 7th Military Region, which commands armed forces defending southeast Vietnam including HCMC, are seen in Co.opmart on Chu Van An Street of Binh Thanh.

HCMC on Monday commenced a 15-day campaign to tighten coronavirus restrictions, requiring people to "stay where they are," isolating homes from homes, streets from streets and wards from wards and have military forces support existing teams in the city in all activities to fight the pandemic, including patrolling and treating patients.

Baskets of goods ordered by local residents in Ward 15 of Binh Thanh District are collected for delivery.

Ward 15 receives around 400 orders per day.

Staff at a food store in Binh Thanh District helps soldiers pack orders.

A soldier waits for payment at a supermarket.

People who place the order can transfer payments to their wards’ Women's Unions or the supermarkets will make advances, to be settled later.

Soldiers buy fruit at Ba Chieu Market in Binh Thanh.

Tran Thi Ngoc Hanh, deputy Party chief of Ward 1, said the ward has set up a hotline for a team of eight people to take care of grocery shopping and buying medicine for local people.

A soldier loads goods onto a truck for delivery.

Soldiers deliver goods to families under lockdown.

Lieutenant Tran Dinh Hung of the 5th Infantry Division said delivering goods to residents in HCMC is quite difficult because many people live in small alleys and their addresses are hard to find, not to mention some families having "aggressive dogs that make us quite nervous.

"But it feels really nice seeing how they have been looking forward for us to come," he said.

Lieutenant Hung takes a rest and has his lunch before continuing work until late evening.

HCMC has been the epicenter of Vietnam’s fourth Covid-19 wave.

So far in the wave that hit Vietnam four months ago, the city has recorded 190,166 local cases and 7,568 deaths.