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The Controversial Approach Of Vietnamese Government To Covid-19 Pandemic

Peter Ho

English Department, Texas Christian University

ENG 10803: Introduction to Composition

Dr. Stacey Said

October 12, 2021

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Introduction To The Controversial Approach Of Vietnamese Government

Do you know what has posed one of the greatest challenges to humankind within 75

years since World War Two (UNESCO, 2020)? It is covid-19! Facing the spread of Covid-19,

many countries worldwide are trying their best to recover the economy and focus on distributing

compensation packages for the residents. However, Vietnam, a developing country, has been

approaching the problem differently. The Vietnamese government took the right path by

enforcing the lockdown in affected cities as soon as the first cases of Covid-19 were recorded.

However, the overly strict Covid-19 lockdown in Vietnam, including compulsory online form to

fill in the reason for going outside, must be presented for the local checkpoint, substandard

centralized quarantines places, the red and green card for people who have or have not got fully

vaccinated enormously, led to the citizens’ dissatisfaction and a considerable decrease in the

economy in general.

Vietnamese have their documents checked by police and military officials at a checkpoint

before entering the Hanoi-Haiphong Highway. (Belluz, 2021)

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Causes and Actions

Causes Of The Strict Lockdown

Firstly, the Vietnamese government sets the strict lockdown because the healthcare

system lacks highly specialized physicians, hospital capacity, and facilities. In regular time, a

specialized physician in the city could see more than 100 patients each day. In 2015, Vietnam

only had around eight physicians per 10,000 population, which is relatively low compared to

other Southeast Asian countries (La, 2020). In rural areas, the shortage of doctors is more severe

because of a lack of decent remuneration, or specifically, preferential treatment when working in

rural areas (Tran, 2019). Moreover, the inability to self-produce vaccines is the real cause of not

being able to control the Covid-19 when it broke out, leading to a long tightened lockdown and

two-week quarantine for the people who are positive or exposed to the Covid-19 patients.

During the lockdown, the government wanted to collect as much data as possible in the

activities of people going outside for tracing easily when positive cases in an area were recorded.

So, a compulsory fill-in form for going outside was created because it is convenient in

controlling the activities of residents and limiting them from going outside without legal reasons

that are stated clearly in the form. Next, I think the government had shortcomings in setting

centralized quarantines by putting many people in a room and letting them use community

bathrooms, leading to cross-infection between infected and uninfected people. Vietnam is a small

country lacking advanced scientific and technological innovations, and many rural areas can not

afford to set standard quarantine areas. Finally, the green and red cards were created by the

government to control tightly and easily the people whether the residents get fully vaccinated or

not (green card for the people who get fully vaccinated and the red one is for people who don’t

get fully vaccinated). Based on bright colors like red and green, inspectors at the checkpoint can
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easily recognize and allow people to go outside or not. Lam Dinh Thang, Director of the

Department of Information and Communications, said the green cards would help the city

monitor people who would become eligible to travel and work based on COVID-19 preventive

criteria (VNA, 2021).

Effects Of The Strict Lockdown

Firstly, when implementing a compulsory fill-in form for going outside with allowed

reasons, the elderly and people who are not used to interacting with technology will have lots of

problems accessing the latest information and measures from the government. This leads to the

inequality between high-tech and low-tech people; however, all citizens have the equal right to

access helpful information about Covid-19 and inform about the government's latest measures.

When the government's vital information about the pandemic is not delivered to all citizens, it

causes asynchronous information, leading to difficulty in controlling and curbing the pandemic.

Moreover, in every province of Vietnam, the government sets up checkpoints preventing people

from going outside unless having a good reason. However, the government apparatus is not

synchronized, so that each province has a different good or no good reason for going outside,

leading to chaotic policy and discontent among people. In an early stage, a cross-sectional study

from Hanoi Medical University using a web-based approach was conducted in the second week

of April 2020, showing that 66.9% reported household income loss due to the impact of Covid-

19 (Front. Psychol., 11 September 2020).

Secondly, centralized quarantine places that do not meet standards lead to cross-infection

between infected and uninfected people when sharing room for many people. Chairman of Ho

Chi Minh City Nguyen Thanh Phong told in a meeting when the pandemic was peaking in

Vietnam, "A majority of new cases recorded in the city in recent days are all in isolated areas.
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We have to frankly admit it doesn't preclude the possibility of cross infections there," (Huu,

2021). Implementing centralized quarantines without meeting standards on a large scale for

international visitors and residents needs plenty of human resources and government budget;

however, cases have been surging during this measure. The city currently hosts 14,500 people

identified as having direct contact with Covid-19 patients in centralized quarantine facilities and

has more than 37,000 others isolated at home (Huu, 2021). Moreover, when applying 7-14 days

of centralized quarantines for foreigners, this measure causes a significant decrease in the entry

of people visiting Vietnam and an increase of foreigners leaving Vietnam, which leads to the

enormous loss of revenue for the tourism industry. Vietnam’s tourism industry is facing an

expected loss of between US$5.9 and US$7 billion in 2020 (Duong, 2020).

Finally, green and red cards cause discrimination between people have and those who

have not got fully vaccinated. This may lead to cheating when the not-fully-vaccinated want to

go outside and the loss of solidarity between people who have a green or red card. Vietnam is

one of many countries can not produce vaccines itself, leading to the enormous lack of vaccines

in Vietnam. When the government implements a green-red-card policy, vaccines are just

prioritized for the upper-class in the society, such as rich people and people working in the

medical/education field. At this time, most people in Vietnam do not get access to the vaccines,

especially the poor and low-academic-level class; the cards cause great discrimination and

inequality among residents. The impact of Covid-19 on citizens’ well-being was examined by a

survey question for my Vietnamese acquaintance: “Choose your level of satisfaction about the

combating-covid19 approach of Vietnam, from 1 star – 5 stars”. The result shows that 0% of

people vote for 5 stars, 10.51% for 4 stars, 50.3% for 3 stars, 29.18% for 2 stars and 10.01% for
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1 star. This result indicates that Vietnamese expect more about the government for providing

more effective solutions in terms of citizens’ well-being.

Conclusions

The strict lockdown did cause a variety of problems for residents and the national economy. The

Vietnamese government should keep lockdown measures but looser, allowing people to self-

quarantine at home. Besides, instead of using the government budget to pay for centralized

quarantine places which do not meet the standard, the policymaker could let people pay

themselves for better and safer places. These changes may have some roadblocks, such as

disagreement in the parliament, especially for the communist country like Vietnam, needing

awareness of residents to wear masks and obey the safety policy of the government. However, in

the big picture, these changes do more good than harm and need to be implemented as soon as

possible by the government to better the situation in Vietnam.

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References

Belluz, J. (2021). Vietnam defied the experts and sealed its border to keep Covid-19 out. It

worked. Vox.

https://www.vox.com/22346085/covid-19-vietnam-response-travel-restrictions

Duong, C. M. (2020). The impacts of COVID-19 on Vietnam and ways to move forward.

EastAsiaForum.

https://www.eastasiaforum.org/2020/06/09/the-impacts-of-covid-19-on-vietnam-and-

ways-to-move-forward/

Front. Psychol., 11 September 2020. Impact of covid-19 on economic well-being and quality of

life of the Vietnamese during the national social distancing. Frontiers.

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.565153/full#B33.

Huu, C. (2021). Cross infections in isolated areas remain possible: HCMC chairman. VnExpress

International.

https://e.vnexpress.net/news/news/cross-infections-in-isolated-areas-remain-possible-

hcmc-chairman-4325682.html

La, H. M. (2020). Healthcare in Vietnam. Borgan magazine.

https://www.borgenmagazine.com/healthcare-in-vietnam/

Tran, P. V. (2019). Vietnam's chronic disease: doctor shortage in remote areas. VnExpress

International.

https://e.vnexpress.net/news/perspectives/vietnam-s-chronic-disease-doctor-shortage-in
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UNESCO. (2020). COVID-19 Educational Disruption and Response. UNESCO.

https://en.unesco.org/covid19/educationresponse 

VNA (2021). HCM City to pilot COVID-19 green cards in three districts. Vietnamplus.

https://en.vietnamplus.vn/hcm-city-to-pilot-covid19-green-cards-in-three-

districts/207998.vnp
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