Pecunia non olet
"stable investment environment"
.. enforced by coercion and human rights violations
Intel has revealed that it pumped an extra US$475m into its facilities in the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. Chipzilla revealed the investments today during a ceremony at which it was awarded an “Amended Investment Registration Certificate” – recognition from Vietnam’s government that it had spent the money on expanding its …
"stable investment environment"
.. enforced by coercion and human rights violations
> At least they don't lock children in ICE detention centres.
If Vietnam had a problem with too many people wanting to get in, quite likely they would.
For whatever reason but it's only the nasty capitalist countries that seem to have this problem of people wanting to move to them.
[Edit] Oh wait, the East German government had to build a wall to stop illegal immigration (or so they said)
Emigration. They had the term "Republikflucht" (flight from the republic) for attempts to get out their wonderful place. The order of border-watching soldiers was to shoot (without warning) and kill anybody attempting to flee. Killing was not mandatory but the practical consequence of the "by all means" clause.
Authoritarian governments like China (and I guess Vietnam, I'm not really familiar with how authoritarian they are) get much better compliance with lockdowns, and China does not have all the anti-mask nutjobs like in the US.
Their numbers are completely believable, all the more so because they have recently reported having a surge in cases (nothing like in the US or UK, but a lot more than they've seen since last spring) If they were cooking the books, why not keep cooking them?
Now as for the origins of covid, I totally believe they are covering something up there. Whether it is simply saving face not wanting to be identified as the place where it started, or because poor regulations in that Wuhan lab caused one of the scientists to get infected at work and go home for dinner to become patient zero, we may never know.
I can't say having never lived in China, but from what I can see they are less authoritarian in Vietnam, however the first link posted up by another commenter is fair and should be read.
Ironically/unfortunately there seems to have been a resurgence in covid as there were 82 cases today traced back from 2 initial.
https://ampe.vnexpress.net/news/news/vietnam-records-first-covid-19-community-transmissions-in-two-months-4227568.html
So here's how the response has gone so far, province now social distancing (and if the gov wants they will shut down a province (they have done before) which is basically the same as a state or county) schools closed for a week. Don't know about any mask order but probably.
They have the authority here and being one party no political shenanigans to get in the way, when announced its happening. No arguments.
But here is the other thing, ask any Vietnamese at the moment there would you send your kids to school if open and the answer would likely be a resounding fuck no. Masks were probably being worn by everyone (rather than just some) as soon as word of that would have got out, the gov order to mask wear would almost be not neccessary. They treat this with a healthy paranoia to some degree out here and actually start taking steps like handwashing etc way before having to be told to.
There's plenty of good reasons to accuse the gov of not being truthful (see that above link) but in this they seem to be approaching it with total transparency because its probably the best tactic when your population hears stuff and goes into pandemic fight mode by itself.
There's good reasons to belive the gov in this, Oxford researchers, and two other groups also backed the numbers. The Vietnamese gossip network would also make George Smiley take notes for its breadth and efficiency, you would be able to tell how worried this country is about covid because you could just count the amount of mask wearers increasing, shops suddenly putting out hand sanitisers and so on. They would be hard put to hide deaths in neighbourhoods that basically know every neighbours business.
Despite having a population of almost 100 million, they only had 35 deaths.
Which of course has nothing to do with the fact that Britain has more people coming for business trips (excluding tourism etc) in a year than visit Vietnam in total, and that Britain is a major international aviation hub meaning we started off importing about 3500 "patient zero" infection cases before China realised that their pandemic was going international and then said something.
Vietnam did not have that problem since the number of people visiting is relatively miniscule making tracing etc actually practicable as a way of controlling the infection.
Isolating is much easier if you were well isolated to start with, and being a totalitarian dictatorship with no opposition or advocates for civil liberties makes imposing and enforcing harsh rules on everybody rather easier.
For instance, mass infection events such as hundred thousand person rallies pointedly did not happen in vietnam precisely because they know dammed well what would happen to those participating.
'For instance, mass infection events such as hundred thousand person rallies pointedly did not happen in vietnam precisely because they know dammed well what would happen to those participating'
Well yeah they all knew what the word infectious means for a start.
Chipzilla revealed the investments today during a ceremony at which it was awarded an “Amended Investment Registration Certificate” – recognition from Vietnam’s government that it had spent the money on expanding its existing chip assembly and test manufacturing facility in Saigon.
Interesting choice for naming the location, the official name is (and has been for over half a century) "Thành phố Hồ Chí Minh" (Ho Chi Minh City).