Vietnam Tries to Fight Off the Delta Variant
After early success against Covid-19, the country now finds itself locked in a tense struggle
Until May of this year, Vietnam kept Covid-19 at bay. From the first reports of the virus's escape from Wuhan, its government was on alert. Rigorous screening, contact tracing, lockdowns, intensive propaganda – it was a textbook case of how to stay safe while neighboring countries fail.
The Health Ministry had a protocol for such events, developed after a prior bout with another coronavirus, the SARS epidemic 15 years earlier. The government didn't waste time persuading the population; it assumed their cooperation and, with well-directed quarantines and testing, it overcame bad outbreaks in Hai Duong (east of the capital, Hanoi) and Danang, in the nation's narrow center. More recently, it suppressed bouts of Covid-19 in factory districts of Bac Giang and Bac Ninh provinces, northeast of Hanoi.
The Vietnamese authorities can be forgiven for having indulged in some celebratory flag-waving about their successes against Covid-19. Vietnam was one of very few countries to post positive economic growth in 2020 and 2021 was looking good, too…