Hanoi has been turned into an open prison to fight the coronavirus

The Vietnamese capital appears to be an open space for metal barriers, bamboo, barbed wire, and beer cans stacked hastily on the streets of Hanoi to prevent residents from turning around and spreading the coronavirus.

“It feels like a detention center,” sighed Ho Thi Anh, 72, whose surroundings, surrounded by makeshift barricades, took the form of a rooted camp.

“All the aisles leading to my house are blocked. Relatives deposit food before the barriers every three days,” she told AFP.

ఎనిమిది మిలియన్ల మంది నివాసితులు జూలై చివరి నుండి తమను తాము నిర్బంధించాలని ఆదేశించారు, అయితే ఇప్పటికీ సాపేక్షంగా నగరాన్ని విడిచిపెట్టిన కరోనావైరస్ తరంగం దక్షిణాన, ప్రత్యేకించి హో చి మిన్ నగరంలో విధ్వంసం సృష్టించడంతో ఉద్యమ ఆంక్షలు మరింత కఠినతరం అవుతున్నాయి.

AFP

Hanoi is now divided into several sectors, between which it has become very difficult to move.

Goal of the barricades: As soon as the COVID-19 case is detected, isolate an area and lock the neighborhood where the infection has escaped.

“Our field is blue, virus free. I’m looking to make sure no foreigners enter there (…) Kovid does not want us in the house,” said Nuen Ha Won, who volunteered to stand guard in front of the narrow alley leading to his house.

Due to the slow pace of its vaccination campaign, Vietnam has been hailed as an ideal country in the fight against the epidemic in 2020, with its detention policy and monitoring of infected people facing a serious setback.

AFP

Authorities have recorded more than 10,000 deaths since the end of July, up from just a few dozen last year.

Ho Chi Minh City, the nation’s financial center, was the epicenter of the hurricane and took on the appearance of a besieged city.

The army deployed thousands of soldiers and reservists there and enforced sanctions and distributed food bags to residents who had closed their homes.

AFP

The megalopolis health system of nine million people is under stress.

“My guard stays from 7am to midnight, sometimes all night,” he told AFP in the middle of the night, a doctor with more than 2,000 beds in a makeshift hospital, where he slept for a month.

Since then 17,000 guards have been sent as reinforcements from other provinces.

More than half of the 98 million Vietnamese are now subject to travel restrictions.

Fearing retaliation, some dare to openly criticize the arbitrary approach.

AFP

The country is starting its vaccination campaign very slowly: only 17% of the population has been vaccinated and 2.6% have been fully vaccinated.

The communist regime struggled to find money and appealed for donations from the population.

The United States and China have offered several million doses, and American laboratories have entered into trade agreements with Pfizer and Moderna, Swedish-British Astrogenka and Chinese Sinovac.

Objective: To try to inject at least one dose to 70% of the population by April 2022.