There was an honest realisation and reporting by the Government from the beginning of January about the limited clinical resources available if this epidemic took hold, so Vietnam was swift in trying to keep the outbreak under control.
'How has Vietnam, a developing nation in South-East Asia, done so well to combat coronavirus?' - ABC News
So how has Vietnam seemingly bucked the global trend and largely escaped the scourge of the coronavirus? The answer, according to public health experts, lies in a combination of factors, from the government's swift, early response to prevent its spread, to rigorous contact-tracing and quarantining and effective public communication.
'How Vietnam managed to keep its coronavirus death toll at zero' - CNN
Despite sharing a border with China, Vietnam has, with a combination of early decisive action, extensive testing, vigorous quarantining and social unity.
'With no deaths reported, Vietnam's response to coronavirus pandemic earns praise' - Daily Sabah
“The steps are easy to describe but difficult to implement, yet they’ve been very successful at implementing them over and over again,” said Matthew Moore, a Hanoi-based official from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), who has been liaising with Vietnam’s government on the outbreak since early January. He added that the CDC has “great confidence” in the Vietnamese government’s response to the crisis.
'After aggressive mass testing, Vietnam says it contains coronavirus outbreak' - Reuters
In sum, Vietnam’s strengthened state capacity during these past months is the culmination of a deliberate, sustained effort to improve governance starting at local levels.
'Reopening Vietnam: How the country’s improving governance helped it weather the COVID-19 pandemic' - The Brookings Institution
Whereas its neighbors, Taiwan and South Korea, could afford mass testing, Vietnam lacked the resources and instead opted for selective but proactive prevention
'The Secret to Vietnam’s COVID-19 Response Success'- The Diplomat