Quick action by the government has helped prevent widespread infection –
and turned the tide of public distrust.
If you want to see real Olympic-level panic-buying, head to a
Vietnamese supermarket a week before Tet, or Lunar New Year.
Yet when the coronavirus broke out in China, Vietnam, with which
it shares a border, there was only an hour or two of panic-buying before things
settled down to normal.
Vietnam has come out of Covid-19 lockdown, and schools have
restarted after being closed all year. The economy is restarting, and there’s
hope the country could escape the worst economic ravages, or even benefit from
plans to diversify manufacturing away from China.
This is a nation that took three goes just to institute a
motorbike helmet law people would actually pay attention to.
There are fewer than 300 reported Covid-19 cases, and no
reported deaths. International press coverage of Vietnam's efforts has been
broad and generally effusive – not something the regime has seen much of for
some years, after cycles of corruption scandals and crackdowns.
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