29/3/2020 Vietnam’s coronavirus offensive wins praise for low-cost model | Financial Times

Coronavirus
Vietnam’s coronavirus offensive wins praise for low-cost model
Hanoi mobilises limited resources by focusing on quarantines and contact tracing

Vietnam has reported 123 cases of the disease and no deaths © Getty

John Reed in Bangkok and Pham Hai Chung in Hanoi MARCH 24 2020

When most of Vietnam’s 96m citizens were celebrating the Tet lunar new year
holiday, Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc was at a government meeting declaring
war on coronavirus.

The disease was raging over the border in China and Mr Phuc warned it would soon
reach Vietnam. “Fighting the epidemic is fighting the enemy,” he said at the end of
January.

Since then Vietnam has proved a model in containing the disease in a country with
limited resources but determined leadership.

Rather than embark on mass testing, which has been the crux of wealthier South
Korea’s response to the outbreak, Vietnam has focused on isolating infected people
and tracking down their second- and third-hand contacts.

“Mass testing is good, but it depends on the resources of each country,” said Tran Dac
Phu, a senior health official advising Vietnam’s Emergency Operation Centre, which is
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29/3/2020 Vietnam’s coronavirus offensive wins praise for low-cost model | Financial Times
u, a se o ea t o c a adv s g V et a s e ge cy Ope at o Ce t e, w c s
equivalent to the US Centers for Disease Control.

“The important thing is, you need to know the number of people who might have
come in contact with the disease, or returned from pandemic areas, then perform
tests on these people.”

Apart from aggressive tracing of infected people’s contacts, the communist

leadership’s measures have also included forced quarantines and the conscription of
medical students, retired doctors and nurses to join the fight.

“Vietnam is a mobilisation society,” said Carl Thayer, professor emeritus at the

University of New South Wales Canberra. “It is a one-party state; it has large public
security forces, the military and the party itself; and it’s a top-down government that’s
good at responding to natural disasters.”

Over the weekend, Hanoi introduced

mandatory 14-day quarantines for all people
If an infected person is in
arriving in the country and the cancellation of
the area, they will report
all foreign flights.
this
Truong Huu Khanh, Ho Chi Minh City Children’s “We have to mobilise all society to the best of
hospital
our capability to fight the outbreak together,
and it’s important to find the cases early and
isolate them,” said Mr Phu.

Vietnam has reported 123 coronavirus cases and no deaths. Most recent cases were
part of a “second wave” of infections traced back to people arriving from abroad. As of
March 20, Vietnam had tested 15,637 people — a fraction of the 338,000 tested in
South Korea.

As elsewhere in south-east Asia with limited testing, the true number of cases is
probably much higher than reported. But Vietnam’s response has still been
impressive. It halted all flights to and from China on February 1 and schools in

Vietnam’s two biggest cities, Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, and most other provinces
were told to remain closed after Tet.
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29/3/2020 Vietnam’s coronavirus offensive wins praise for low-cost model | Financial Times
we e to d to e a c osed a te et.

On February 13, Vietnam became the first country after China to seal off a large
residential area. It imposed a 21-day quarantine in a part of Vinh Phuc province,
north of Hanoi, where more than 10,000 people live, after cases were traced back to
workers returning from Wuhan.

At a time when its neighbour Thailand is being criticised for its haphazard response to
coronavirus, and Myanmar — which claimed to be free of the disease until reporting
its first two cases on Monday — Vietnam’s response has been praised by health
officials. Kidong Park, the World Health Organization’s representative in Hanoi,
lauded Vietnam for its “proactiveness and consistency throughout the response”.

However, Vietnam’s success in containing Covid-19 depends in part on the

mobilisation of medical and military personnel, surveillance and intrusion, and on the
state’s network of informants — measures that might prove difficult for the US or
European countries to countenance.

Read more about the impact of coronavirus

• The latest figures as the outbreak spreads
• Containing coronavirus: lessons from Asia
• How dangerous is the coronavirus and how does it spread?

Subscribers can use myFT to follow the latest ‘coronavirus’ coverage

Vietnamese state-controlled media has been relentlessly on message, and officials

seem to have been transparent about the outbreak, in contrast with crises such as a
2016 chemical spill that angered the public. Vietnam’s health ministry sends regular
text messages about coronavirus-related news and health tips.

A recent survey by Nielsen Vietnam, the market research firm, found the majority of
respondents were “highly aware” of Covid-19’s symptoms. The government’s efforts to
fight COVID-19 have garnered popular support, judging by social media posts

cheering health workers and a viral propaganda poster-style meme reading: “To stay
at home is to love your country!”
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at home is to love your country!

But part of Vietnam’s approach has been heavy-handed. People found sharing “fake
news” about the virus have been summoned by police and about 800 have been
fined.

Vietnam’s national network of informants has helped keep tabs on infected people.
“Neighbours know if you come from a foreign country,” said Truong Huu Khanh,
head of the department of infectious diseases at Ho Chi Minh City Children’s hospital.
“If an infected person is in the area, they will report this.”

In response to a question from the Financial Times, Vietnam’s government

spokeswoman said that Hanoi had “implemented many drastic and applicable
measures” to contain the disease. “Until now, the coronavirus cases in Vietnam
remain at a low rate with no deaths,” Le Thi Thu Hang said.

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2020. All rights reserved.

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