An interesting piece of Vietnamese culture that I have recently been looking at is the country’s response to the world’s current biggest threat: COVID-19. As of April 3rd, the country has a cumulative number of confirmed cases of 2,626 for a country of a population that has roughly 96.5 millions people (2019 data) with a population density of around 291 people per square kilometer. The country is amongst one of the many countries with the highest population density rate in the Asia Pacific region as well as the world; it was ranked at place 11th in 2018 in the region and 15th worldwide. The country is roughly the size of California (about 83%) with roughly one third of the US entire population. However, while the United States is recording a steady increase in cases on top of the 40 thousand new COVID cases each day, Vietnam’s highest recorded number of cases per day was 66 on February 3rd. The country has reported a total COVID-19 related death count of 35 in comparison to the United States’s staggering half a million. In fact, according to a statement released by the CDC at the end of last month, COVID was the third leading cause of death among Americans in 2020, behind heart disease and cancer. So what makes Vietnam such a successful COVID story compared to other more developed countries?
A lot of lies in the reality that Vietnam doesn’t have a well established welfare safety net like the majority of developed nations. As a developing country, Vietnam cannot compare to countries like the US in terms of economics; the United States has a GDP per capita of $59,800 as of 2017, while in Vietnam, the GDP per capita is $6,900 as of 2017. An average person in Vietnam is likely to make 88.7% less money than an average person in the US. The country is not able to take a financial crisis on top of a health crisis.
However, Vietnam has had a history of successfully managing pandemics; during the SARS pandemic of the early 2000s, the country only recorded 63 cases and five deaths before it was cleared by the CDC. Many interventions pioneered by Vietnam during the SARS epidemic are currently being used to respond to the current COVID-19 outbreak. Similarly, its experience with epidemic preparedness and response measures may have led to greater willingness among people in the country to comply with a central public health response. Additionally, After the SARS epidemic, Vietnam continued to invest in its public health infrastructure, developing a national public health emergency operations center as well as a national public health surveillance system in preparation for future breakouts.
Another startling comparison in COVID-19 response between the US and Vietnam is their lockdown procedures and restrictions. While the US government largely left lockdown procedures and restrictions up to the state or implemented only soft measures, Vietnam implemented mass quarantines in suspected hotspots. The country entered a nationwide lockdown on April 1st, 2020 which was initiated for 15 days but was extended to 21 days in 28 out of 63 provinces. Additionally, Vietnam took early steps to implement closures, require masks, and limit mobility for citizens and international travelers. Most other countries waited to make these types of decisions until numbers were much higher.
It is clear that Vietnam took serious precautions even before the COVID-19 outbreak knowing that it is not capable of handling the consequences of being ill prepared, and the country’s effort greatly paid off.
Comments
Han, thank you for highlighting Vietnam’s success story! This needs to be talked about more often because these are lessons for all the other countries to learn. One of my Vietnamese friends from U of R (his name is David), went back home during COVID and has been sharing insights about COVID in Vietnam. Vietnam’s attention to contact tracing, and compliance with mask-wearing and quarantining is a text book example of how a country should respond to a public health crisis. I respect how Vietnam has not forgotten the experience with SARS and has continued to invest in public health infrastructures- it is paying off!
It is fantastic to hear how the precautions that were lacking here were effective in Vietnam. Its also interesting to hear that despite the economic disparity between Vietnam and the United States, their pandemic response was more effective. I also wonder if the low infection rates in Vietnam affected nearby countries.
This is a really relevant post! I didn’t know that Vietnam had such an effective strategy in dealing with the spread of COVID-19. I think two major aspects of effective strategies all over the world were having the government implement early quarantines and taking proactive, rather than reactive measures to ensure people’s safety. I would be interested in seeing if these positive qualities of Vietnam’s response to the COVID-19 outbreak show in other areas of their culture as well.