Vietnam vs COVID-19: Round 2
By: Christopher Otis
Tags: Public Health, Covid 19, Vietnam, Pandemic, Coronavirus

Vietnam vs COVID-19: Round 2

The Southeast Asian nation has, once again, been a shining example of how to quickly and effectively control the spread of COVID-19.

From the very beginning, Vietnam has undoubtedly been one of the world’s best stories in regards to managing the COVID-19 pandemic.

After decisive action was taken to mitigate the spread of the virus way back in February, which eventually culminated in the decision to ban all public gatherings of more than two people for the entire month of April, the country of nearly 100 million, which shares a long border with China, virtually eliminated the virus from the community. Life was able to restart again under a “new normal” in May that looked and felt remarkably similar to life before the pandemic, save for the absence of foreign tourists and the presence of extra precautionary measures in public spaces.

Vietnamese authorities and society took the threat seriously from the start (likely in part from their experience in containing SARS), took strong action when required, and wound up with an amazing record that included just a few hundred cases and zero deaths for their efforts.

Thus, by May, while much of the rest of the world was still coming to grips with the fact that this pandemic wasn’t going away without implementing tough public safety measures, Vietnamese citizens (and foreigners like myself who were lucky enough to be here during all this) were free to live their lives without worrying about catching or spreading COVID-19 because the government had acted swiftly and collectively from the national-level to the commune-level.

For the next couple of months, people were able to start going about their lives somewhat normally, with a rapidly growing sense of calm and confidence that contrasted starkly with the reality that many places outside of Vietnam were facing. Case numbers slowly rose as stranded Vietnamese nationals were repatriated from overseas and immediately quarantined, but no community spread of the virus was occurring, and life here was beginning to feel like an isolated bubble of safety that couldn’t be touched by the rest of the world’s problems.

Seeing that it was summer, domestic tourism boomed, also thanks in part to public awareness campaigns that called for people to help an industry that was struggling mightily without foreign tourists being barred from the country. Additionally, while many were suffering from the economic impacts of the initial shock of the pandemic and subsequent shutdown, recovery was well underway, and the economy was still expected to post a positive growth rate for the year.

But then, in late July, seemingly out of nowhere, everything changed.

Stories began circulating which claimed that a man in Da Nang, one of Vietnam’s largest cities and a massive tourist destination, had tested positive for COVID-19 despite having no known contact with confirmed patients, which would indicate the virus’ reemergence in the community. On July 25, the case was confirmed by Vietnamese authorities, ending a streak of 99 days of no confirmed community transmission in the country.

The popular coastal city of Da Nang unexpectedly found itself at the center of a new COVID-19 outbreak. (Christopher Otis, February 2020)

Over the next few days, dozens of cases were found in several locations throughout the country, most of which could be traced back to Da Nang and the neighboring province of Quang Nam, culminating in a record-high 82 new cases being confirmed on July 31, which included 20 in the capital of Hanoi and 3 more in the country’s largest city, Ho Chi Minh City.

Needless to say, this sudden development was shocking. To go from 99 days of absolutely no community transmission occurring to dozens of cases being confirmed nationwide on a daily basis was extremely jarring and disconcerting. The anxiety that most of the world had been dealing with, but was noticeably absent from Vietnamese society throughout the early summer, returned abruptly and slapped us all in the face.

As expected, the government again took swift action. After a confusing initial couple of days where panicked tourists returned to their hometowns by whatever means necessary, all flights to and from Da Nang were stopped.

But instead of enforcing a nationwide social distancing campaign like the one that was implemented back in April, authorities opted for a more localized approach. Da Nang immediately went back to the “April lockdown” rules, but for most of the rest of the country, a wait-and-see approach was implemented alongside the country’s proven strategy of tracking suspected cases, tracing and testing their contacts as much as humanly possible, and isolating those contacts in government-run quarantine facilities.

This “track-trace-test-isolate” approach worked brilliantly in tandem with localized lockdowns and quarantine zones where small clusters of cases emerged, preventing mass spread of the virus while minimizing the economic impact of this second wave of infections. Despite the fact that this strain of COVID-19 was found to be a different, more virulent one than was present in the country earlier in the year, the number of new daily cases began to steadily drop by the second week in August, with the last confirmed community transmission occurring on September 2.

Of course, it would be remiss to not also mention the government’s approach to getting important information to the community in ways that were clear, easy to understand, and far-reaching.

As opposed to some other countries, where misinformation about the virus has been politicized and weaponized, the Vietnamese government provided an unprecedented level of transparency to its citizens in order to ensure that everyone was fully informed on all matters relevant to the virus and the prevention of its spread. Among other things, detailed information regarding symptoms, instructions on what to do if one suspected they had been exposed, and other bits of key information were sent via text message to all active mobile phone numbers in the country. The result was that the general public fully bought into the policies and rules put forth, and thus cooperated in a way that allowed this strategy to work.

Daily new COVID-19 cases, Vietnam, includeing repatriated cases. (wordometers.info, September 24, 2020)

And now, on the eve of the two-month anniversary of the confirmation of the first case that kicked off the second wave, things are basically back to the “new normal” again. Flights to and from Da Nang have resumed, bars and clubs in big cities have reopened, and Da Nang’s last active COVID-19 patient has been released from the hospital. With a sense of cautious optimism, everyone is once again free to go about their daily lives with nothing but the least inconvenient of restrictions in their way, such as occasional temperature checks and mask mandates in public spaces.