And so Vietnam defeated Covid (before the vaccine) – Corriere.it

After more than a year of battle, the virus in Vietnam has left 35 people on the field – one surprise to one A country of 97 million people. Surprisingly, just over 2,700 people were infected in three weak attacks, without, even in the darkest periods of the epidemic, exceeding the ceiling of 110 new cases per day. A fraction of the current number of 14,000 is in Italy, whose population is shrinking by a third. Today life there is running smoothly: apart from the short and targeted closures, People go out and go to concerts; Clubs, schools and restaurants are open.
Guard level remains high. US news site Vox reported that in Haiphong, near the capital, Hanoi, dozens of checkpoints were set up in February for the Tate Festival, the Vietnamese New Year, the country’s most important holiday as families move to meet together to celebrate. The infection in your area is enough to get stuck: One case and the parent region turn red, you can’t move from there. In March, Vietnam also suspended domestic flights, in the country that for the first time closed its borders abroad. At the beginning of last year, while Europe and the United States focused on protecting themselves from countries suffering from HIV cases, Vietnam closed itself to the world.. In mid-March, he suspended all visas for foreigners and suspended flights.

While in Western countries travel restrictions are chasing the infection, which is limited to the most affected countries, with quarantines that are often not mandatory and allow loopholes, Vietnam is locked down. As the West goes along with accordion measures and mitigates when cases decline, Vietnam has maintained its barriers, even in times when there were no new cases. The fewer infections, the more valuable the border restrictions: They work better when they appear excessive, before or after transmission of the virus, says Mark Jett, an epidemiologist at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, inverting beliefs and practices. The most popular by far.

Even today, only limited groups of people, such as business people, are allowed access to Vietnam if they come from low-risk countries. In any case, anyone who wants to enter needs special government permits and must then undergo a 21-day quarantine under state supervision.

Movement restrictions and mandatory quarantines have been joined in Vietnam through other measures such as careful tracking, timely and targeted lockdowns, and voluntary testing: A combination of measures that help understand how Vietnam managed to stop the virus before even the start of mass vaccination.

Few countries are so bold in responding to the epidemic. Vietnam is a communist country with a per capita GDP of $ 2,700 In the year of the epidemic it recorded a growth of 2.9%, which is the best performance in Asia. This has resulted in the population supporting measures to combat the epidemic.

Certainly, A one-party political system It helped respond faster and more compactly to the health crisis. But it’s not simply about pitting totalitarianism and western democracies, notes Kelly Lee, a professor of global health at Simon Fraser University, who studies the effect of restrictions on movements. Francesco Magriss also suggested in Corriere, This victory cannot be explained exclusively in the usual and self-exempt form of dictatorship, and certain politically impractical measures can be taken there..
So much so that even one The small democracy, Taiwan, boasts a few cases and only 11 deaths in total. To save Vietnam, like Taiwan, he contributed first and foremost Fear of china, Epicenter of the epidemic: The two neighboring countries had a timely response and put in place a detailed plan of measures to defend themselves from what they considered a threat soon. But in a globalized world, we are all on the borders of China.

Scale up the shot by Walter Ricciardi, in the editorial on future: What do New Zealand, Taiwan, Rwanda, Iceland, Australia, Vietnam, Cyprus and Thailand have in common? Little or nothing from a geographical, cultural, economic and social point of view and because they are all countries where life today flows somewhat naturally. The choice not to live with the virus, but to stop it, and eliminate it if possible – Sums up the advisor to the minister, Roberto Speranza – They made bold choices.