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Vietnam, which has reported under 300 coronavirus cases and no deaths since the first infections were detected in January, said on Wednesday it would start lifting tough movement restrictions: https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-health-coronavirus-vietnam/vietnam-to-ease-nationwide-coronavirus-lockdown-idUKKCN2241LD?il=0 (1/8)
Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc said no provinces in Vietnam were now seen as "highly prone" to the pandemic, although some non-essential businesses will remain closed. (2/8)
I've tweetstormed this before, but Vietnam has won plaudits for appearing to contain the virus despite being less wealthy than other places seen as relatively successful such as South Korea and Taiwan. It's reported no new infections for nearly a week. Check out that curve (3/8)
How? It has used a combination of the mass quarantine of tens of thousands, contact-tracing and testing to successfully contain relatively small clusters of COVID-19 outbreaks, as we reported back in March: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-vietnam-quarantine/vietnam-quarantines-tens-of-thousands-in-camps-amid-vigorous-attack-on-coronavirus-idUSKBN21D0ZU (4/8)
And as colleagues @jc_stubbs and @razhael report, Hanoi may have also gleaned crucial early information from China: Vietnamese state-backed hackers were targeting Wuhan officials before the cases were even detected outside China. More on that here: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-cyber-vietnam/vietnam-linked-hackers-targeted-chinese-government-over-coronavirus-response-researchers-idUSKCN2241C8 (5/8)
But Vietnam also took other early measures. One day after detecting its first two cases, Hanoi suspended flights to Wuhan. Days later, Vietnam closed its border with China to all but essential trade and, by March had made the wearing of masks in public places mandatory. (6/8)
But perhaps the most interesting statistic is this one: Vietnam, which in 2003 became the first country outside China to be infected by the SARS epidemic, has by far the largest ratio of testing to confirmed COVID-19 cases in the world. By a long way. Watch this: (7/8)
Vietnam has carried out 180,067 tests and detected just 268 cases, 83% of whom it says have recovered. That's nearly 672 tests for every one detected case, according to @OurWorldInData. The next highest, Taiwan, has conducted 132.1 tests for every case. (8/8)
