The US’s The Strategist newswire said Vietnam has followed a budget-friendly approach that has proven equally effective. The Vietnamese Government tightened border controls and put hospitals and local health departments on high alert before the first fatality in China and only three days after confirmation of the outbreak there.
Its recent study of Vietnam’s COVID-19 policy response attributed the country’s initial success in slowing the rate of infection to the authorities’ focus on communication and public education through technology platforms and systematic tracing of pathogen carriers.
The article also noted that citizens have been voluntarily sharing personal health information via a government-launched app called NCOVI while authorities have actively interacted with citizens via the social media.
It concluded that by focusing on early risk assessment, effective communication and government-citizen cooperation, an under-resourced country with a precarious healthcare system can manage the pandemic.
At the same time, the ASEAN Post said other nations in ASEAN and the rest of the world can learn from Vietnam’s swift response to handling the pandemic.
France’s Liberation paper attributed Vietnam’s impressive achievements to the healthcare system’s efforts to ensure the safety and health of the people instead of heeding profits of insurance companies.
About this, Russia’s Novosti Petrozavodsk paper quoted a woman of the country returning from Vietnam as saying that the Vietnamese State has offered all possible support for citizens, always ready with available food, necessities and masks to meet public demand with discounts. Meanwhile, the Vietnamese people fully follow the State rules without hesitance.
The Times of India said the Vietnamese Government has actively protected citizens against the epidemic as it promptly suggested initiatives and understood the exact nature of challenges.
The article stressed that the success could be reached if each citizen heightens the sense of responsibility and cooperates with the government.
The UK’s The Guardian published a poster and post stamps designed by Vietnamese painters that sent clear messages of solidarity in the fight against COVID-19.
Meanwhile, the US’s New York Times said despite insufficient resources and financial capability, Vietnam still sent masks to France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK along with its neighbours Cambodia and Laos. Vietnam also handed over 450,000 Dupont protective suits to the US.
German news agency Deutsche Presse-Agentur (DPA) on April 13 underlined that Vietnam's response to the COVID-19 pandemic can offer lessons to nations struggling to contain the outbreak, noting that “much of Vietnam's success can be ascribed to its social unity”.
