Vietnam a clear winner in COVID-19 war

Since Vietnam shares a 1,281-kilometer border with China, it perceived the imminent virus threat. The country designed a three-fold strategy in February 2020. Vietnam with 9 crore population has reported only 288 cases so far. Instead of depending on China or other countries for testing kits, the nation is manufacturing them locally. The kits cost USD 25 and reveal the test results within an hour and a half.

Hyderabad: We have heard the success stories of Taiwan, South Korea, Singapore and Germany. These countries have had the best response to COVID-19 pandemic so far. So much so that they are preparing to lift the lockdown. But it is surprising that nobody mentioned how Vietnam won the fight on coronavirus.

While the aforementioned countries had casualties, Vietnam reported zero deaths. Somehow, the world was too busy to notice this wonder. As of May 11, there were about 7,569deaths in Germany, 20 in Singapore, 7 in Taiwan and 256 in South Korea. The reason Vietnam has no coronavirus deaths is the country’s prudence and foresightedness in taking preventive measures.

Ever since the US got affected, President Trump has been calling COVID-19 a Chinese virus. But Vietnam knows all too well about China right from the start. It was a tough lesson learnt from the Sino-Vietnamese War.

A Vietnam-based cybersecurity agency called APT32 discovered that a new virus was spreading in China. Immediately, the Vietnamese government employed its cybersecurity agencies to learn more about China’s Emergency Regulation affairs and Wuhan Municipal Government.

American cybersecurity firm FireEye has revealed that APT32 has been waging cyber-attacks since 2012 to uncover the secrets of companies based out of China, Germany and the US. Along with Washington, Vietnam also got curious about social media posts suggesting the origin of a new virus in China during November-December 2019.

After gathering further information from its students, diplomats and businessmen in China, the Vietnamese government wasted no more time in preparing its action plan.

Since their country shares a 1,281-kilometer border with China, the Vietnamese government perceived the imminent virus threat. Vietnam designed a three-fold strategy in February 2020. Despite being a Communist country, the government has taken measures even at the cost of violating civil rights liberties.

Vietnam started thermal screenings at airport terminals as early as February, before other countries stepped up their game. The travelers had to disclose their itinerary and contacts to the airport officials.

Persons with temperature exceeding 38 degrees C were moved to nearby medical centres. Going a step ahead, Vietnam started thermal screenings in restaurants, banks, enterprises and apartment complexes.

By May 8, Vietnam had conducted 2,61,004 COVID-19 tests. If anyone tests positive, the entire street was declared a containment zone and sealed off.

For this reason, this country with 9 crore population has reported only 288 cases so far. Instead of depending on China or other countries for testing kits, the nation is manufacturing them locally.

The kits cost USD 25 and reveal the test results within an hour and a half. These domestic testing kits also played a key role in Vietnam’s fight on coronavirus.

By the second week of February, foreign-returned Vietnamese citizens were sent to 14-day quarantine. Countries that have delayed the quarantine process are now paying a heavy price.

Vietnam started locking down select cities from March. Tracing and testing were done to the T. Any village that reported positive cases was immediately sealed off.

Since the beginning of the year, the government warned its citizens that novel coronavirus is nothing like the normal flu. Beginning with the Prime Minister, the cabinet ministers and local leaders created public awareness of the disease.

The government also published the details of COVID-19 victims and those who absconded the quarantine. Instead of revealing their names, only the patient IDs were published.

Unarguably, Vietnam did nothing different from what other countries are doing now. But its pandemic response is the best because it reacted and acted before anyone could estimate the scale of this pandemic.