Summary of the COVID-19 outbreak in Vietnam – Lessons and suggestions

Abstract

After the World Health Organization declared the new Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) a pandemic on March 11, 2020, as of March 23, more than 350,000 cases were confirmed globally [1]. The infection has skyrocketed to 5-digit numbers in several countries [1]. Vietnam, however, which shares a long border and has a massive volume of trade with China, appears to have a good hold on the spread of the disease. Since the first case of COVID-19 was announced on January 23, there have been only 123 infected cases with zero death confirmed [1,2]. Thus, we write this letter to shed more light about epidemiological maps of cases in Vietnam and also provide helpful information for epidemiologists and policy makers to address specific measures in response to the pandemic. Data were collected from the major daily newspapers in Vietnam, including Tuổi trẻ, Thanh Niên, Dân trí, VnExpress, and then organized and analyzed using Microsoft Excel. Surveillance cases data from January 23 to March 23, 2020 officially reported by the Vietnam Ministry of Health were also used to estimate the cumulative rates.