What happens when you’d love to have vaccines, but you don’t have them

Vietnam (where my wife has been since before the pandemic began) is going through hell nowadays. I often liked to brag about the fact that, until less than 3 months ago, the country had experienced only 35 Covid deaths and fewer than 2,000 total cases during the entire pandemic. However, that changed drastically with the Delta variant. Here’s the current situation:

·        They’re at about 275,000 total cases as of yesterday, with 5,774 total deaths – although there are persistent reports that this is a vast undercount. I find those reports hard to believe, but even these numbers are bad enough (VN has 93 million people, a little more than ¼ the size of the US population).

·        The country is totally locked down. All stores are closed – the only way you can get food is by ordering it. Food prices are about triple what they were before, and there are lots of shortabes. In many parts of the country, if you can’t afford the new food prices, well…may God help you.

·        You can get fined if you go out of your house, period. And you have to get emergency permission from the police to go anywhere. Since visiting her elderly parents – who have various serious health problems – doesn’t count as an emergency, my wife finally took it into her own hands and made the 5-minute motorbike trip to her parents. She was caught and fined $500.

Why are they so strict in Vietnam? Because they have to be. The hospital system is already full and people are being turned away. But sometimes the government literally makes things worse with their measures.

My wife saw a good example of this a few weeks ago. A friend of hers had to quarantine – which involves being taken to some facility far away. The friend has a 6-year-old daughter, who had to stay behind. But the police wouldn’t even let the friend find someone else (like my wife) to care for her daughter, perhaps because the daughter might have been exposed, in case her mother was sick.

So the daughter was left at home alone for five days, while my wife pleaded with the police to allow her to travel the 2-3 miles to pick the girl up and bring her to live with her. The poor girl was terrified (as was her mother). Finally, my wife persuaded a neighbor – who could quickly walk to the girl’s house and bring her back without being caught – to take her in (with compensation, of course).

The friend finished her quarantine recently, but it turns out that, even though she continually tests negative, she has to now do another quarantine at the house of a different friend (her employer, although the business is closed now). While that’s a lot better than the quarantine facility, she’s still not allowed to live with her daughter, since she obviously couldn’t maintain social distance from her. So the girl remains at the neighbor’s (talking with her mother by phone constantly. Her mother hasn’t told her she’s nearby, because the girl won’t be able to understand why she can’t see her).

So what’s the vaccine situation in Vietnam? Up until a couple weeks ago, the only people vaccinated were government employees. Now, there are some vaccines available, which are of course prioritized for the elderly. But one of those vaccines (and the most available) is the Sinovac vaccine from China. The experience with that vaccine has been uneven (at best) in other countries like Indonesia and Thailand. My wife says that people are refusing that one, and waiting for the “British” and “American” vaccines – which seem to be available now, but in very small quantities. Vietnam will be very lucky if they get a good portion of their population vaccinated by the end of the year.

So the next time you hear someone complain about the vaccines, please tell them to ship their dose to Vietnam! Nobody's complaining about vaccines being available there!

 

The numbers

These numbers were updated based on those reported on the Worldometers.info site for Sunday, August 9.

Month	Deaths reported during month	Avg. deaths per day during period	Deaths as percentage of previous month’s
Month of March 2020	4,058	131
Month of April	59,812	1,994	1,474%
Month of May	42,327	1,365	71%
Month of June	23,925	798	57%
Month of July	26,649	860	111%
Month of August	30,970	999	116%
Month of Sept.	22,809	760	75%
Month of Oct.	24,332	785	107%
Month of Nov.	38,293	1,276	157%
Month of Dec.	79,850	2,576	209%
Total 2020	354,215	1,154
Month of Jan. 2021	98,604	3,181	119%
Month of Feb.	68,918	2,461	70%
Month of March	37,945	1,224	55%
Month of April	24,323	811	64%
Month of May	19,843	661	82%
Month of June	10,544	351	53%
Month of July	8,833	287	84%
Total Pandemic so far	633,116	1,188

 

I. Total deaths (as of Sunday)

Total US reported Covid deaths as of last Sunday: 637,561

Average deaths last seven days: 635

Average deaths previous seven days: 534

Percent increase in total deaths in the last seven days: 0.7%

II. Total reported cases (as of Sunday)

Total US reported cases as of Sunday: 37,466,718

Increase in reported cases last 7 days: 923,380 (= 131,911/day)

Increase in reported cases previous 7 days: 744,414 (= 110,631/day)

Percent increase in reported cases in the last seven days: 2.5%  

I would love to hear any comments or questions you have on this post. Drop me an email at tom@tomalrich.com.