Vietnam is a thickly populated neighbour of China, home to approximately 97.34 million Vietnamese. Its health care system isn't at its best, and the government has a low budget for fighting the coronavirus. Despite these facts, how does it continue to keep its COVID-19 infection rate so low?

Kidong Park, the World Health Organisation's representative to Vietnam, believes the country's quick and early response to the crisis played an essential role in the success they now witness. He said that Vietnam's very first risk assessment drill was conducted early in January, right after the coronavirus cases started appearing in China.

The mix of early decisive action, comprehensive testing, strict quarantining, and social unity, seems to the country's secret recipe for avoiding devastation see in other large countries like the US and UK. Official statistics show that as of the present time, the country has more than 75,000 people in quarantine has so far conducted more than 121,000 coronavirus tests.

Vietnam has about 265 cases of the novel coronavirus and zero deaths. These numbers are significantly lower compared to cases from the rest of the world. Still cautious, the government has imposed a lockdown and social distancing to prevent further spread of the virus. They also shut down many small businesses, leaving thousands of citizens out of work.

Nguyen Huy Nga, the former director of the Preventive Medicine Department at Vietnam's health ministry, explained that the infected elderly are few because the virus has not yet spread throughout their nation. In addition, Nguyen said they had experience in developing disease treatment regimens due to their earlier brush with SARS, another type of coronavirus.

Quick to Respond

Schools in Vietnam have been closed since January, and mass quarantining was implemented on March 16. Since then, people entering the country from countries obtaining significant cases of coronavirus have been put into forced quarantine in many wide-range military-style camps. International flights have stopped on March 25.

The ease of these restrictions is still nowhere in sight. The majority of services for domestic flights, trains, and buses have been suspended. Furthermore, anyone leaving Hanoi is quarantined upon arrival in almost any other province in the country.

Even though the virus seemed to be contained, the Vietnamese government still implemented a nationwide lockdown on April 1. The decision to do so was comparably faster than seen in Britain or Italy, where cases had already reached thousands in number before public life was shut down.

Unity and Cooperation in Times of Crisis

Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc is proud of the citizen for their social unity during this trying time. He recently described the country's efforts to control the virus as the 'spring general offensive of 2020'. It was a direct reference to the compelling 968 Tet Offensive executed by the Viet Cong during the Vietnam war. Nguyen Van Trang, an economist in Hanoi, shared that her parents said they hadn't seen such levels of compliance, discipline, and unity since the war.

Vietnamese responses to the crisis may, at times, be what others consider to be 'severe.' There had been an instance wherein a Vietnamese man was given a nine-month prison sentence for defying officials by refusing to wear a mask. However harsh it may seem,

these strict measures have so far translated into a relatively successful outcome. More remains to be seen as to whether Vietnam is capable of containing the spread of the virus in the long run.