My elderly uncle is in Vietnam, where he has been living for several years.

This is the letter he sent to family in the States: /1

Just in case any of you are interested, I've decided to send all my friends and family an update on how things are going here in Vietnam.

Today is the first time in a month, that Vietnam recorded no new cases of COVID-19 and there haven't been any new cases in my province for /2

three weeks. The number of cases reported here since the beginning of the pandemic is 240 total and 150 of those are either cured or are well enough to have returned home from the hospitals. There have been no deaths from COVID-19 in the country. All four patients who had been /3

in intensive care are out of ICU and doing much better.

For about two weeks in late February, we had no recorded cases in the country at all, as the original 16 who became ill in January were all cured by mid February. Then a Vietnamese lady returned from the United States and/4

brought COVID into my city. She held a party at her house to celebrate international women's day. Another lady returned from England and began infecting people in Hanoi, while a man returned from Malaysia and ignored orders to stay at home, going out to the mosque /5

every day to pray. (The big problem in Korea was caused by an evangelical christian group, in India by Hindu group and in New York by orthodox Jews.)

Obviously, the difference between the reaction to the virus in Vietnam and the reaction by government officials in /6

the United States has been starkly different, resulting in a vast difference in the number of people who have become ill and, in the case of the US, have died. One would think that since Vietnam borders China, we should have many more cases. However, the government here /7

immediately closed the border and cancelled all flights into and out of China when the virus in Wuhan first became known. It took the United States two more weeks before any flights from China to the US were cancelled and almost a month after Trump had first been warned about /8

the possibility that the virus might soon be in the United States. In that two weeks, some 300,000 people had flown into the United States from China, including 6,000 from Wuhan.

Almost immediately, the United States was caught short when it came to medical supplies, much /9

of it the result of cost cutting and the elimination of programs and departments set up to handle medical emergencies and pandemics. At least one of those departments was eliminated in November to help pay for loss in revenue caused by the Republican tax cuts. /10

One would think that simple face masks would not be difficult for the richest country in the world to have in sufficient supply. Here in Vietnam, people started wearing face masks in January and there are enough that everyone can wear a new one every day. They are available /11

and on sale in virtually every pharmacy and most food stores. When I didn't wear one two weeks ago, someone handed me one to put on.

The government of Vietnam immediately purchased 1,000 ventilators from Korea at the beginning of the epidemic, so that the hospitals here /12

would have sufficient supplies. This is one of the reasons that we have no deaths from the virus. The lack of ventilators is a major reason that the number of deaths in the richest country in the world will be in the hundreds of thousands, if not millions. Just ask Cuomo. /13

Vietnam has tested some 16,000 people, which is not a lot in a country of 100 million. But the difference is that Vietnam was proactive in immediately bringing the tests in from China and other countries in January and then /14

using those from the beginning to track new cases and to quarantine the neighborhoods where those people lived, as well as identifying people with whom they socialized. There are currently some 30,000 people quarantined throughout the country. The CDC in the United States, /15

on the other hand, refused to accept tests from other countries, insisting that they could create them. The first tests they sent out were flawed and the time it took them to create new ones made the difference between life and death for thousands of people, who might /16

have otherwise been saved.

Although some 45 million have been pulled out of poverty in the 20 years I have been here and the per-capita GDP has more than doubled in that time, Vietnam is a poor country. The government does not have the resources of the United States, /17

but what resources it has were immediately used to control the epidemic On the other hand, virtually no resources were used to prepare the United States. For 70 days from the time that Trump was first notified on January 3rd until he finally decided to do something, /18

all the "deep state" scientists and doctors in the administration were begging for the money they needed to prepare for the coming epidemic. During those 70 days when the Vietnamese government was educating everyone in the country about hand washing, wearing face masks /19

and social distancing, Fox News, Rush Limbaugh and Donald Trump were telling Americans that they didn't need to do anything. They told their followers that coronavirus is a Democratic hoax and they should ignore those who told them to stay at home.

Even now, /20

some Republican controlled states are not enforcing stay at home orders, while the government here has closed down the entire country until the 15th of April. All businesses other than pharmacies, food stores and a scattering of other establishments have been closed. /21

My entire Vietnamese family of eleven and I are ensconced at our home, which is rather isolated and surrounded by a gated wall. We feel fairly safe since there are no more cases of COVID in the province. I go out once a day to get some coffee and supplies. Since there are /22

only two guests in the [resort] at present, the owner has invited me to move over there and stay in one of the new bungalows rather than sit at home every day. I may do that.

In the meantime, I'm very /23

worried about all of you who are stuck in the richest country with the most COVID cases and deaths of any in the world. I hope that you all stay home and stay safe, /24