
Covid-19: Only 268 cases and no deaths. How did Vietnam with 97M people do it? - doppp
https://mothership.sg/2020/04/vietnam-covid-19-success/
======
moltar
We have been in Vietnam since March 8th. Prior to that we were in Thailand.
The response of these two neighbouring countries is night and day.

Authoritarian governments can shine during the crisis. In the meantime,
Thailand is in a messy political situation and has lost control of the
situation.

When we arrived, on March 8th, there were stations at the airport doing
temperature checks. Immediately quarantining anyone with a fever. They also
collected extra info on all arrivals for contact tracing.

Majority (~ 80%) of locals were taking it seriously and were wearing masks
voluntarily. And they were really adamant about us wearing masks. Our condo
had free masks and sanitizer in the lobby.

They were also doing home visits of people who have arrived starting from
March 8th. But we didn’t get a visit. I’m guessing they were working backwards
and just never made it to these earlier arrivals.

Overall I’m very impressed with the way Vietnam handled the situation.

But at the same time, I can’t believe these numbers. I have no concrete
evidence, but just feels too low.

There was A LOT of contact. Many businesses continued operating. I know of a
software office that continued asking people to come into the office and the
last week, when permission was given to work from home. Construction was in
full force. Most didn’t wear any masks. Many other businesses remained
operating and didn’t shutdown.

~~~
ekianjo
> Authoritarian governments can shine during the crisis

Pretty bold claim as China did not fare too well and keeps lying from the
beginning about everything.

~~~
moltar
I think they did well. You have to consider the environment they are operating
in. Very dense living conditions. Way more commingling of citizens. And the
sheer population alone.

~~~
yomly
Also China was the epicentre. Other governments and scientists had an extra
two months to think about the problem.

------
colmvp
My prediction is if more cities around North America did post-mortem Covid
tests of people who passed away in February, there's a good chance we'd find
some deceased actually had Covid-19 similar to what California revealed
earlier last week. Because of those findings, some researchers are now
thinking community spread in places like the Bay Area may have started as
early as January.

I say this because reading this article, they mention that Vietnam quarantined
an entire district in Hanoi back in February when the entire country only had
10 cases at that point in time. They also banned travel from and to mainland
China in early February. Those measures done early may have saved them from
tens of thousands of infections. Vietnam has essentially relied on aggressive
contact tracing coupled with strict lockdowns/quarantining.

Here in Canada, we brushed off suggestions of forced quarantines of incoming
travelers or banning flights to/from Mainland China. We solely relied on
travelers telling authorities if they experienced symptoms, which bit us in
the tail when March came along and hundreds of new cases were popped up by the
day.

We didn't reverse our stance on restrictive measures till the virus had gotten
out of a control. Even now as the growth rate has flattened, we're still
dealing with the fallout in long term care facilities as hundreds of elderly
people have passed away due to caregivers/visitors unknowingly infecting them.
That coupled with the growth of the virus in the homeless community has made
it very challenging to sustainably contain the virus.

I think what frustrates me is that we knew we had weaknesses in our system,
yet we decided to go with the non-proactive solution anyway. Even recently we
didn't bother with random testing asymptomatic caregivers until after hundreds
of people died. It's a lot harder to undo the damage than it is to be overly
pre-cautious and prevent the worst case scenario from happening in the first
place.

~~~
sinuhe69
They (they Vietnamese government) had apparently hacked the computers of the
Chinese CDC and the Gates foundation to obtain information about the epidemic
in China in the last weeks of January. Equipped with these informations, the
government of Vietnam could act swiftly and decisively beginning February to
contain the spread of the virus. It was a war-like situation and reliable up-
to-date information is of crucial importance. The governments of many
countries had handled the pandemic not very well because they relied solely on
WHO (and China). And the lack of reliable information turned out to be deadly.

~~~
dirtyid
>The governments of many countries had handled the pandemic not very well
because they relied solely on WHO (and China).

I see this accusation thrown around a lot, but it doesn't align with timeline
and import statistics.

APT32 (Vietnam) hacked China as early as Jan 6th, but didn't shutdown borders
until late Jan, well after WHO confirmed H2H and after China the broadcasted
seriousness of covid19 with Wuhan followed by country wide lockdowns. Apart
from shutting borders with Hubei/China in late Jan - early Feb, the countries
that responded well shared one common quality: they immediately rolled out
effective screening, testing, tracing and isolation. Which is in line with WHO
recommendations on Jan 23 and Jan 30.

The effectiveness of border closing is debatable, since imported cases
statistics from these regions (SK, HK, Taiwan, Singapore) indicate very few
cases were exported out of China (less than 30), most of which were out of
Hubei, whereas hundreds of imported cases came from Americas and Europe.
Australia, New Zealand and Canada is similar. These are all places with
massive traffic flows with China that also repatriated hundreds to thousands
from Wuhan with few positives cases that spread was or could have been managed
without huge impacts on civic life. Vietnam is different in that it doesn't
have as much resources as other countries so it must necessarily ere on the
side of caution.

But broadly, the countries that didn't handled the pandemic well didn't listen
to WHO and China and waited too long before acting.

------
charlysl
From a westerner living in Vietnam:

There are many things that haven't been mentioned here yet.

Vietnamese schools haven't reopened since Tet, end of January.

The population distribution is skewed towards the young end.

Most cases were imported, by youngish people, and the average age of these is
even younger, mostly students, or for business or for holidays. Mostly
relatively rich and young, not many travelling pensioneers in this country.

Mentioned measures contained community spread from said travellers to the
rest.

The very old in Vietnam are not in care houses, they are at home, cared for by
their extended family, who is much more likely to give a damn.

Information from the government news agency has been rather transparent, or so
it seems to me. Every case has a number, and case numbers of contacts of new
cases are reported. If unknown this is also reported.

This appearance of transparency and the fact that everyone infected is
receiving prompt free treatment encouraged people to report suspect cases
rather than hiding.

The government carries as a badge of honor that there haven't been any
fatalities yet. The few critical cases are getting extreme medical treatment,
no resources are being spared, there are so few that they can afford to do
this. Multiple nurses, doctors and equipment per ICU patient. It seems to me
that they will do whatever it takes to prevent fatalities. One of the critical
cases is an european pilot. If he died it would be impossible for the
government to hide.

Facemasks are plentiful, I have shipped many to friends and relatives in my
country, where they are scarce and expensive. Hand sanitizer is everywhere.

It seems that heat doesn't stop the spread after all, but if it slows it down,
that might also have helped, this is a tropical country, though in the north,
and in the mountains, it can get quite chilly in winter.

I feel lucky being here now, but, of course, it's too early to call, I won't
know for sure until this is over.

~~~
johnwangdoe
also they made a viral tik tok banger, which help spread the basic hygiene and
preventive message.

------
decasteve
Along with Taiwan, Vietnam is also another country that dealt with and learned
from SARS in 2002/03.

------
9nGQluzmnq3M
> _Vietnam has become one of the first few countries in the world to emerge
> successfully from the first wave of the Covid-19 outbreak_

It's even more impressive: they emerged successfully not just from the first
wave (direct from China, with which they share a long land border), but the
second wave as well (travelers from Europe, US, Iran etc). Quite a few
countries, notably Singapore, rode the first wave well but stumbled on the
second.

------
alvah
"They were also one of the first few countries to ban return flights to and
from mainland China, having announced the suspension from Feb. 1, 2020,
slightly more than a week after the country's first cases of Covid-19 were
found."

How much of their reported success in containing the virus was due to this,
and how much was due to the lockdown? Other countries which have fared
relatively well (e.g. NZ, Australia) also closed their borders early.

------
sixQuarks
Nicaragua supposedly only has 13 cases of Covid and they never implemented ANY
precautions. Their president was also missing for more than 30 days, just
showed up a couple of days ago finally.

~~~
neuronexmachina
Oof. Are there any stats on how many tests Nicaragua has run?

~~~
bagacrap
14

------
seoguru
Vietnam is doing more to halt COVID-19 than most countries on Earth. people
that are there:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cme4vNcqFFs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cme4vNcqFFs)

------
op03
Vietnam is not a magical place. It lies some where at the bottom of the pile
in the press freedom index next to China.

So god knows how many people where silenced, jailed or killed. Wait for a few
years for the full story to emerge.

~~~
jlei523
American living in Vietnam right now.

The first part of your post is true.

The second, is in my opinion, completely false.

As others have mentioned, the government is incredibly diligent in tracking
the virus. And why shouldn't they? They were freaked out by SARS in 2003 and
as a growing 3rd world country, they simply cannot afford to have the virus
spread.

Also, if one person gets the virus or one person is placed in quarantine in
Vietnam, it's all over Facebook and shared. The government can't hide shit
when it comes to the virus.

------
jstewartmobile
Maybe because they don't get extra money for labeling a patient as a COVID
patient:

[https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2020/04/24/fac...](https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2020/04/24/fact-
check-medicare-hospitals-paid-more-covid-19-patients-coronavirus/3000638001/)

------
grrbullshit
The same way Thailand has only 52 deaths, the blokes here could have explosive
diarrhea and still won't consider washing their hands (granted the woman are
the polar opposite - washing their hands continually - scared to death of it)
and with mass exodus from the cities when hospitality went belly up the other
month there is no way it isn't everywhere in SE asia non-city towns and
villages. Whereas Singapore is fucked and they have western approaches to
hygiene, a bit odd that wouldn't you say. Ineffective testing, or ineffective
tests, head in sand, photoshots for the big boys, hospital directors worried
about their livelyhood etc..

All cynism aside I do think SE Asia has fared better than Europe, but the
reasons won't be worthy of someone getting an award (although no doubt their
will be award like ceremonies for years to come) - the temperature theory is
rebounding now etc..

~~~
taneq
> Whereas Singapore is fucked and they have western approaches to hygiene, a
> bit odd that wouldn't you say.

Singapore was doing fine until their blind spot for itinerant cheap laborers
meant this group was never properly tested. Now they've realised that these
people are in fact people.

------
sitkack
I'd love to see an antibody study in Vietnam. I have a theory that with a low
enough viral load, most people won't be symptomatic. If you can infect someone
with a single copy of the virus, they won't notice. You cough directly in
their face and the constant factor starts from that virus population and your
immune system doesn't have a chance to catch up.

This is why healthy medical staff die and the prison population tests positive
for antibodies but didn't show symptoms.

\----

To be clear, I am not advocating for an unethical study, but that infection
rates in Vietnam are much higher than their case count would indicate.

------
wizardforhire
This conversation is rather prescient as the death toll in the US due to covid
will most likely surpass the total US combat deaths of the Vietnam War
tomorrow.

------
cheaprentalyeti
I follow a professor in Vietnam on twitter; he was pointing out last month
that hydroxychloroquine is an over-the-counter drug there and is commonly used
to treat malaria. They're probably not going to wait until you're most of the
way dead before administering it the way the "We Must Have A Study"
bureaucrats will here. I suspect this also apples to the rest of Indochina.

------
blondin
a few things they did:

> On April 15, Vietnam's "fake news" laws went into effect, which was
> introduced to address the spread of misinformation about Covid-19 over
> social media in the country.

> A fine of VND10-20 million (S$605-S$1,210) was to be imposed on people who
> make use of social media to share "false, untruthful, distorted or
> slanderous information"

> Security officials or Communist Party spies can be found on every street and
> crossing in every neighborhood and in every village

maybe they just didn't have super spreading situations? what if it was luck?

~~~
DarthGhandi
You can't hide overall mortality so the truth will come out eventually.

~~~
netsharc
Smells like "we've concluded this person died of normal causes and if you say
it was covid-19 we will fine you heavily for spreading 'fake news'.".

Even doctors in China were punished for trying to speak out, it's easy to
believe the Vietnamese govt would do the same

------
tutfbhuf
In short: They didn't. That are only the measured numbers and they depend on
how well you measure.

------
AzzieElbab
Kind of pointless without knowing how many people were tested

~~~
emiunet
Back when MOH of Vietnam still published number of people tested per day, I
collected the data from their website and made this graph:
[https://i.imgur.com/hzkG3R2.png](https://i.imgur.com/hzkG3R2.png) They
stopped doing that though.

So as of 4/12, number of people tested and came out negative was 121.6K

------
dis-sys
North Korea is doing even better.

~~~
eloff
If you trust them (but who would). That said, given they have so little
interaction with the outside world, it wouldn't be surprising.

------
aaron695
Clearly it's weather.

I'm not sure how much more evidence we need.

Yes they are lying a bit. Yes they have done great work. But these aren't
enough to see what we are seeing.

And all the counties going into winter are going to be crying in a few months
no one warned them, or it was somehow unexpected.

