Vietnam ranked 2nd for successfully handling coronavirus pandemic - it barely had to lock down Feb 22, 2021, 09:00 AM
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Medical personnel in protective suits conduct swab tests for COVID-19 on the support staff for the Communist Party of Vietnam 13th National Congress at the National Convention Centre in Hanoi on January 29, 2021.
NHAC NGUYEN/AFP via Getty Images
Vietnam has reported 2,362 coronavirus cases and 35 deaths, despite its population of 97 million.
From previous experience, Vietnam had a long-term plan in place to cope with outbreaks.
Contact tracing, strategic testing, clear messaging, and mask-wearing prevented mass lockdowns.
Countries like New Zealand, Australia, and Taiwan have been praised for the way their leaders acted quickly.
Countries like New Zealand, Australia, and Taiwan have been praised for the way their leaders acted quickly.
Before recording a single coronavirus case, New Zealand imposed travel restrictions on February 3, 2020 for travelers coming from mainland China.
Australia had stricter rules than most other countries only allowing residents to travel within 3 miles of their homes.
In an op-ed for Time magazine, Taiwan s President Tsai Ing-wen said the country s success to handling the coronavirus outbreak was no coincidence. The painful lessons of the 2003 SARS outbreak, which left Taiwan scarred with the loss of dozens of lives, put our government and people on high alert early on, Ing-wen wrote.
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If Laos fell into a Chinese debt trap, would it make a noise? Maria Siow A Laos trainee learns signalling skills from a Chinese mentor Wei Songtao as part of work on the China-Laos railway. Photo: Xinhua
Cambodia s close ties with China have often led to criticism that the Southeast Asian country is too dependent on, and even a client state of, the world s second largest economy. However, its next-door neighbour Laos - despite enjoying billions of dollars of Chinese funding - has seldom been viewed in the same light. Why not?
Analysts says this is due to the more adroit way in which Laos has handled relations with China and its other neighbours, most notably Vietnam.
18 February 2021
‘
Di bat bien, ung van bien’ a phrase evoked by Ho Chi Minh in 1946 is the Vietnamese rendering of a Chinese maxim which may be translated ‘to respond to the changing with the unchanging’. This could sum up the essential lesson to be drawn from the 13th Congress of the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) held from 25 January to 1 February this year.
The Congress began with an upbeat tone. Vietnam has been lauded by the international community for its handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. With a population of 97 million people, Vietnam has only recorded 35 deaths. It seems to have done all the right things closing borders early, heavily controlling locally targeted confinements and maintaining transparency in its communication strategy to encourage patriotic behaviour to combat the virus. While the rest of Southeast Asia is in recession, Vietnam recorded a growth rate of 2.9 per cent in 2020.