Coronavirus: How 'overreaction' made Vietnam a virus success

[Orangesapples 1,954]

Here is one successful case of a country that knew just as much as everyone else and shares a border with China. It's also a poor country, with not a lot of resources. Somehow they were more competent than many other rich countries:

 

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-52628283

Despite a long border with China and a population of 97 million people, Vietnam has recorded only just over 300 cases of Covid-19 on its soil and not a single death.

Nearly a month has passed since its last community transmission and the country is already starting to open up.

Experts say that unlike other countries now seeing infections and deaths on a huge scale, Vietnam saw a small window to act early on and used it fully. 

 

When the first virus case was confirmed on 23 January - a man who had travelled from Wuhan to visit his son in Ho Chi Minh City - Vietnam's emergency plan was in action.

"It very, very quickly acted in ways which seemed to be quite extreme at the time but were subsequently shown to be rather sensible," says Prof Guy Thwaites, director of Oxford University Clinical Research Unit (OUCRU) in Ho Chi Minh City, which works with the government on its infectious disease programmes.

Vietnam enacted measures other countries would take months to move on, bringing in travel restrictions, closely monitoring and eventually closing the border with China and increasing health checks at borders and other vulnerable places.

Schools were closed for the Lunar New Year holiday at the end of January and remained closed until mid-May. A vast and labour intensive contact tracing operation got under way.

[Burnt Reynolds 5,058]

"How destroying the outdated US first amendment of speech, religion, and assembly made China a harmonious success!"

[Orangesapples 1,954]

There are a few countries that have been successful at the battle with COVID 19 and Vietnam really stands out because it's really big, close to China and poor. But it took action early, didn't wait, and as a result people are back to normal life much faster and they never even had a nation wide lockdown because they could contain the virus. Also, travel bans only work if you isolate and quarantine all people arriving from the risk country/abroad. Otherwise transmission will occur. The people who had to be quarantined had to be isolated in non luxury conditions for the a few weeks and that prevented the death and suffering of thousands, as well as economic collapse or a giant lockdown. 

[Burnt Reynolds 5,058]

The same could be said about locking people in their homes every year for flu season.

 

If one is going to do cost-benefit, they then must factor the cost to people's health and lives by locking them down. Also, the time. The time a lockdown might have actually worked would've likely been January or before. After that, lockdowns have been pointless, and insanely damaging. It's like upping prescription meds on someone with the ceiling effect (medical diminishing returns) in play.

 

Should've never happened. Thankfully things are opening back up regardless of the intent to wreck people's lives and get revenge on Trump. 

[Orangesapples 1,954]

Vietnam has no deaths from COVID 19 and they're back to normal life. The best case scenario thanks to a competent response. 

[Dashinka 24,741]

Just curious.  Vietnam is a communist country, are we sure they are reporting numbers using the same measures as everyone else?

 

Also, I believe the DPRK is touting themselves as a model against the coronavirus.  Not even a single case.

[Orangesapples 1,954]

1 minute ago, Dashinka said:

Just curious.  Vietnam is a communist country, are we sure they are reporting numbers using the same measures as everyone else?

 

Also, I believe the DPRK is touting themselves as a model against the coronavirus.  Not even a single case.

Addressed in the article. 

[Burnt Reynolds 5,058]

18 minutes ago, Orangesapples said:

Vietnam has no deaths from COVID 19 and they're back to normal life. The best case scenario thanks to a competent response. 

What is a "normal life" in Vietnam? You tell me. 

 

 

8 minutes ago, Dashinka said:

Just curious.  Vietnam is a communist country, are we sure they are reporting numbers using the same measures as everyone else?

 

Also, I believe the DPRK is touting themselves as a model against the coronavirus.  Not even a single case.

China also reported 0 deaths for an entire month. You know, the place where it came from, noted for their transparency.

 

Lets all be like Vietnam!

 

Edit: I will say, I do have a few in-laws that are from Vietnam. Their lifestyle is nothing to look down on. They live a modest lifestyle, they don't pollute, don't trainwreck their environment the way we do in the west. In some ways its quite respectable. But in many other ways, as is typical in a communist country, the same can't be said of the leadership. 

 

Edit 2: I also want to say, Orange, if it weren't for the politically paralyzing idiocy going on up and down the political landscape, there'd be plenty to learn from global responses that one could take that would be plausible, applicable, and worth trying out in the US, federally or in state/local jurisdictions. The problem lies in the polarizing ineptitude and/or blatant disregard for how things work in the US.

Edited May 15, 2020 by Burnt Reynolds

[Dashinka 24,741]

Didn’t deBlasio try this in NYC?  Btw, the article just made a passing reference to the validity of the data, and did not go into detail what measure they were using.  For instance, in our state anyone that dies With either a confirmed test or suspicion of Covid19 regardless of the primary cause is counted.

 

Enforcing social distancing and quarantine relied on its entrenched system of "loyal neighbourhood party cadres spying on area residents and reporting to superiors", says Phil Robertson of Human Rights Watch,

[Dashinka 24,741]

The interesting thing here is the overall difference between an authoritarian regime that has the ability to oppress its citizens.  I am glad Vietnam was not overwhelmed, but Thinking that we should all be like Vietnam is just wrong.

[Orangesapples 1,954]

3 minutes ago, Dashinka said:

Didn’t deBlasio try this in NYC?  Btw, the article just made a passing reference to the validity of the data, and did not go into detail what measure they were using.  For instance, in our state anyone that dies With either a confirmed test or suspicion of Covid19 regardless of the primary cause is counted.

 

Enforcing social distancing and quarantine relied on its entrenched system of "loyal neighbourhood party cadres spying on area residents and reporting to superiors", says Phil Robertson of Human Rights Watch,

What did de Blasio try? As far as I know, he downplayed the pandemic in the beginning, also, he's just a mayor and he can't restrict travel or enforce quarantine and border control for example. 

 

And there are human rights problems, yes, but the success was due to other measures. And your quote doesn't cast doubt on the numbers. There is no reason to suspect that their numbers aren't accurate, that's why the international community uses not suspecting them of fabricating the data the way they are with China and North Korea. 

 

The truth is that Vietnam had the same information as every other country, they decided to not trust China and take swift action. Their success is an embarrassment for Italy and the US (as well as other countries) and Italy an the US should be embarrassed. 

[Orangesapples 1,954]

Just now, Dashinka said:

The interesting thing here is the overall difference between an authoritarian regime that has the ability to oppress its citizens.  I am glad Vietnam was not overwhelmed, but Thinking that we should all be like Vietnam is just wrong.

The measures were not that authoritarian. They never had their entire country on lockdown. Closing your borders temporarily is not a big problem at all. Forcing people entering the country (whether they're citizens or not) to quarantine is just common sense and I don't see how else a virus can be contained. The result is that Vietnamese people actually have more freedom in the moment and no death. I don't have a problem with the measures they took at all. People whining about "freedom" don't know what they're talking about. Preventing an epidemic is the best way to be free and alive. 

[Dashinka 24,741]

2 minutes ago, Orangesapples said:

What did de Blasio try? As far as I know, he downplayed the pandemic in the beginning, also, he's just a mayor and he can't restrict travel or enforce quarantine and border control for example. 

 

And there are human rights problems, yes, but the success was due to other measures. And your quote doesn't cast doubt on the numbers. There is no reason to suspect that their numbers aren't accurate, that's why the international community uses not suspecting them of fabricating the data the way they are with China and North Korea. 

 

The truth is that Vietnam had the same information as every other country, they decided to not trust China and take swift action. Their success is an embarrassment for Italy and the US (as well as other countries) and Italy an the US should be embarrassed. 

de Blasio set up his snitch line for neighbors to snitch on other neighbors.  It did not go well.  As to their numbers, I am not questioning their numbers, just if they are using the same parameters for reporting.  Now again, the DPRK was even more successful than Vietnam.

 

[Dashinka 24,741]

1 minute ago, Orangesapples said:

The measures were not that authoritarian. They never had their entire country on lockdown. Closing your borders temporarily is not a big problem at all. Forcing people entering the country (whether they're citizens or not) to quarantine is just common sense and I don't see how else a virus can be contained. The result is that Vietnamese people actually have more freedom in the moment and no death. I don't have a problem with the measures they took at all. People whining about "freedom" don't know what they're talking about. Preventing an epidemic is the best way to be free and alive. 

Forced quarantine is not an authoritarian response?  Btw, we tried to close our borders, probably too late at least with respect to the EU, but that brought about a lot of caterwauling from the usual suspect.

[Orangesapples 1,954]

Just now, Dashinka said:

de Blasio set up his snitch line for neighbors to snitch on other neighbors.  It did not go well.  As to their numbers, I am not questioning their numbers, just if they are using the same parameters for reporting.  Now again, the DPRK was even more successful than Vietnam.

 

You're just ignoring the fact that no reliable source or country doubts Vietnam's data. What you're saying is just speculation. 

 

Personally, I approve of citizens being responsible and reporting violations. However, this is a very small part of the response and not even the biggest reason for the success. 

 

The facts are that Vietnam did a good job and it's petty not to acknowledge it.