Good morning! In these extraordinary times, I'm going to send out Monday updates, in addition to the usual Friday newsletter, as there is simply too much happening to wait a week.
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When I sent out Friday's edition, Vietnam's case total stood at 76. Over the weekend, that jumped to 113, 17 of whom have fully recovered. Nineteen cases were announced on Sunday alone, the biggest one-day total in Vietnam since the outbreak began.
Fortunately, most of these new cases came from quarantine zones, including six in the Mekong Delta and six in Hanoi. These are largely Vietnamese students studying abroad who have returned from Europe. Another patient in the capital is the daughter of a nurse at Bach Mai Hospital who was announced positive for Covid-19 on Friday.
Several of the new cases in Saigon, however are very worrying. One is a 55 year-old man in District 8 who returned to Vietnam from Kuala Lumpur on March 3 and then prayed at his local mosque five times a day from March 4-17 before testing positive on Sunday. City officials are tracking down other people who attended the same religious event in Malaysia as this individual.
Across town, a British pilot living in Thao Dien tested positive after attending a St. Patrick's Day party at Buddha Bar, a popular expat spot, on March 14. Two other British nationals who were at the bar that night have also tested positive, and this has ignited a social media dumpster fire among segments of the expat community. (Yes, it's quite sad that it took other expats getting sick for some people to start taking this seriously.) Many on Facebook have blasted the bar for being open, though they were legally in the right, while others have directly attacked the pilot. The Thao Dien police station is also closed since the pilot went there to register his residence and interacted with three cops.
Multiple luxury high-rise buildings around town are locked down, several in relation to this, and it seems the 'Buddha Bar cluster' (trademark pending) is posing a serious challenge for Saigon, and will do nothing to help the already-tarnished image of foreigners here. (Nor will this.)
Vietnam's proactive quarantine strategy has been quite effective, but the above cases show that the threat of community transmission is still alive. The government has asked anyone who entered the country after March 1 to self-isolate at home for 14 days and submit a health declaration, as there are concerns that infected people made it in before everyone started being quarantined upon arrival.
There is also the risk that these quarantine facilities turn into infection hotspots, though that isn't happening yet. So, when you're watching Vietnam's case numbers, pay close attention to how many are being reported from quarantine, and how many are from within local communities - if the latter stays low, things should stay in relatively good shape.
Meanwhile, from midnight on Sunday all foreigners, including overseas Vietnamese, were banned from entry, while the government advised international students not to return home, as quarantine facilities risk being over-run. Thousands of Vietnamese arrived at Noi Bai and Tan Son Nhat daily over the weekend. Also on Sunday, the Ministry of Health tagged 586 people as suspected Covid-19 cases, by far the largest single-day total yet. (The previous was 304 on one day in February.)
International flights are expected to be halted soon, though it remains unclear when exactly that will happen. It's safe to say that by the end of this week, Vietnam will effectively be sealed off from the world.
To end on a lighter note, yesterday I cycled over to Thu Thiem, where hundreds of people were flying kites amid the undeveloped and half-developed land over there. Some may criticize the lack of social distancing on display here, but most groups did keep some space between each other, and I simply thought it was wonderful to see so many people enjoying themselves - it's a good sign of what Vietnam has accomplished so far, especially in comparison to the emergency situations going on elsewhere.
Back on Friday.
