COVID-19 pandemic in Vietnam
The COVID-19 pandemic in Vietnam has resulted in 11,624,000[1] confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 43,206[1] deaths. The number of confirmed cases is the highest total in Southeast Asia, and the 13th highest in the world. Hanoi is the most affected locale with 1,649,654 confirmed cases and 1,238 deaths, followed by Ho Chi Minh City with 628,736 cases and 20,476 deaths; however, the Vietnamese Ministry of Health has estimated that the real number of cases may be four to five times higher.[3][4][5]
COVID-19 pandemic in Vietnam
On 31 December 2019, China announced the discovery of a cluster of pneumonia cases in Wuhan. The news of a "strange pneumonia" in China had been circulating on Vietnamese media since the beginning of January 2020.[6] The virus was first confirmed to have spread to Vietnam on 23 January 2020, when two Chinese people in Ho Chi Minh City tested positive for the virus.[7][8] Early cases were primarily imported until local transmission began to develop in February and March. Clusters of cases were later detected in Vĩnh Phúc,[9] Hải Dương, and three other major cities, with the first death on 31 July 2020.[10]
During 2020, the Vietnamese government's efforts to contain the spread of COVID-19 were mostly successful.[11] The country pursued a zero-COVID strategy, using contact tracing, mass testing, quarantining, and lockdowns to aggressively suppress transmission of the virus. Vietnam suspended the entry of all foreigners from 22 March 2020 until 17 November 2021[12] to limit the spread of the virus.[13] The measure did not apply to diplomats, officials, foreign investors, experts, and skilled workers. In January 2021, the government announced a stricter quarantine policy to "protect the country" during the 2021 Tết Nguyên Đán. Individuals entering Vietnam had to isolate for at least 14 days if they were unvaccinated, or seven days if they had been fully vaccinated, and were contained in government-funded quarantine facilities.[14] Specially designated individuals such as diplomats were exempt.[15][16][17]
Vietnam experienced its largest outbreak beginning in April 2021, with over 1.2 million infections recorded by that November.[18] This led to two of its largest cities, Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi, and around a third of the country's population coming under some form of lockdown by late July.[19] A shortage of the AstraZeneca vaccine supply in the country,[20] along with some degree of complacency after successes in previous outbreaks, as well as infections originating from foreign workers, were considered to have contributed to the outbreak. In response, government-mandated quarantine for foreign arrivals and close contacts to confirmed cases were extended to 21 days, and accompanying safety measures were also increased.[17] The emergence of the Omicron variant brought about a rapid rise in infections in early 2022, although drastically fewer deaths were reported due to high vaccination rates in the country.[21] Infection rates dropped and stabilised throughout 2022 and 2023, leading to the end of COVID-19's classification as a severe transmissible disease in June 2023.[22]
Although the pandemic has heavily disrupted the country's economy,[23] Vietnam's GDP growth rate has remained one of the highest in Asia-Pacific, at 2.91% in 2020. Due to the more severe impact of the outbreak in 2021, Vietnam's GDP grew at a slower rate, at 2.58%.[24]
Vaccinations commenced on 8 March 2021[25] with a total of 200,179,247 administered vaccination doses reported by 12 March 2022.[3][26] The Vietnamese Ministry of Health has approved the Oxford–AstraZeneca vaccine, the Sputnik V vaccine, the Sinopharm BIBP vaccine, the Pfizer–BioNTech vaccine, the Moderna vaccine, the Janssen vaccine, and the Abdala vaccine.[27] Vietnam also approved Covaxin from Bharat Biotech.[28][29] As of 13 March 2022, a total of 221,807,484 doses have arrived in Vietnam.[3]
Background[edit]
Novel infectious diseases, such as COVID-19, are a significant public health threat.[30] Although human coronaviruses (CoVs) were known as major pathogens which caused respiratory illnesses,[31][32] a new strain of coronavirus known as SARS-CoV caused an outbreak in 29 countries from 2002 to 2004. The outbreak, which infected 8,098 people and caused 774 deaths,[32] Evidence showed that the virus may have originated from an animal coronavirus that found its way into the human population.[32][33][34] indicated that animal coronaviruses could be dangerous to humans.[32]
Although it is still unknown exactly where COVID-19 began, many early cases have been attributed to visitors to the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan, Hubei, China.[35] The earliest known symptomatic person was later discovered to have become ill on 1 December 2019, but that person was apparently unconnected to the later wet-market cluster;[36] an earlier case possibly occurred on 17 November.[37][38][39] China reported the cluster on 31 December 2019,[40] and the World Health Organization (WHO) issued its first report on the outbreak on 5 January 2020.[41] A week later, the WHO confirmed that a novel coronavirus caused a cluster of respiratory illness reported earlier in Wuhan.[42][43] On 20 January, the WHO and China confirmed that human-to-human transmission had occurred.[44] WHO declared the outbreak a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC) on 30 January, saying that its Wuhan investigation was finished and citing mounting evidence that the novel coronavirus had spread to 18 countries.[45]
Vietnam has a history of managing pandemics; it was the second country (after China) to address the 2002–04 SARS outbreak and, after 63 cases and five deaths, was the first country to be declared SARS-free by the WHO. Since that outbreak, Vietnam had increased investment in its public-health infrastructure, developed a national public health emergency operations center and a national public health surveillance system, and maintained systems to collect public data. Since 2016, hospitals are required to report notifiable diseases to a central database within 24 hours so the Ministry of Health can track epidemiological developments nationwide. In collaboration with the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Vietnam implemented an "event-based" surveillance program in 2018 which enables the public to report public-health issues. Officials can identify clusters of people with similar symptoms, which might indicate an outbreak.[11]
With a population of nearly 100 million and millions of visitors from China, the country's largest trading partner, annually,[46][47][48][49] Vietnam was initially perceived as likely to be hard-hit by the pandemic. When the country recorded its first two cases on 23 January 2020, it was among the first countries affected by COVID-19.[50] Two weeks later, only 150 cases had been reported outside mainland China; ten were in Vietnam, however, making it one of the top-ten affected countries. By early 2021, Vietnam was one of the countries with the lowest case count and mortality per million inhabitants.[51]