Vietnam - Ho Chi Minh City - Corona Virus

Sounds like pot luck, just like the rest of the world.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.monito … index.html

The link is already out of day but it gives the idea.

Zozz7 wrote:

Hello All,

I just moved to Saigon (for few years) by mid of December from Europe and i have some concern regarding corona virus.

I am following daily basis the international news but I am interesting what could be in the local news. How risky the life in Ho Chi Minh and in Vietnam

If you have any local information please share.

Also any warning or advice would be appreciated.

Thank You
Zoltan

One English language site you can follow:

vietnamnews. vn

Don't be guided by the panic that is being spread.
Outside the region around Wuhan in China there are isolated cases. Vietnam has no more cases than the USA or Europe.
The virus is not as highly contagious as viruses in this category in the past.
A vaccine is expected in 2 months. China has already been able to successfully cure sick people.
Only weak people usually die from such viruses as is the case with common flu too.
Tens of thousands of people die from common flu every year and nobody talks about it

Wear a surgical mask at airports and wash your fingers frequently.

Hello All,

Thank You for all answer.

Please see a link below which can be very use full.

https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2020 … -outbreak/

The virus may not be as dangerous as SARS but it is for sure way more contagious which is the main issue, knowing how people travel nowadays etc.
Panic isn't necessary but knowing what to expect is. Vietnam has not halted flights from and to China. Only one province in China is under quarantine and 5 millions people from Wuhan have left for Tet before the quarantine. Vietnam would be the luckiest country in the world if nothing at all came to Saigon. As population density is very high there, I'd be wary at the very least.

Actually all chinese tour group flights have stopped as of Monday 27/1/20.  Vietnam basically only gets those tour groups.

Usually I see about 40+ tour buses parked near a popular tourist attraction in Nha Trang.   Today only 2 buses.

Last year, on the last day of TET there were over 70 buses parked around a large apartment/hotel complex picking up passengers in the morning.    Today.....about 5 buses. 

It's dropped off .    The big BBQ seafood restaurants usually have buses parked out the front......tonight they're empty.    The last of the Chinese will be gone by Saturday.   

Nha Trang gets the bulk ( over 50%) of all Chinese tourists, about 200,000 a month.   

This will hit hard on local jobs , suppliers  , bus companies etc etc etc.

They've massively over developed with high rise apartments, most of which are empty BEFORE this virus came along.   Lots of nervous business people at the moment.   

But not as nervous as the banks that financed it all.

I suspect overpriced housing and a possible crash is likely to worry a lot more people than a virus.
Now, if estate agents were all to catch the thing and not manage to hang on to their mortal coils, the rest of the world would be better off.

To get back to the OP question,,,,don't worry about it Zoltan , you've got more chance being struck by lightning , than being killed off by this virus.

My main concern here is roads.  I've had 6 bike accidents,  4 motorbike & 2  bicycle.  none of them my fault & only minor injuries.   However , the number of close shaves was scary.   

Even as a pedestrian I've been clipped a few times.   Would you believe I was on my regular morning & evening walk & I was hit by a refrigerator that fell off a passing bike.   It was a little old lady taking an old fridge to the metal recycling place. It wasn't even strapped on. 

So Zoltan.....forget the virus, keep your nose clean , maintain some common sense & keep away from old ladies working for scrap metal joints.

By the way.....those bike accidents.   As a foreigner your usually considered in the wrong regardless.
Fully expect the Police to say........” if you weren't here, this wouldn't have happened...your fault.”.

One of Vietnam's first confirmed coronavirus patients recovers


https://e.vnexpress.net/news/news/one-o ... MkzcF-dJ3c

One of the two Chinese nationals who were the first confirmed cases of infection by the new coronavirus in Vietnam has recovered.
At Saigon's Cho Ray Hospital, Li Zichao, 28, was tested three times including on Monday and turned up negative every time. He had been at the hospital for six days.

Zichao is able to breathe without the assistance of a respirator and eats food normally, Dr Nguyen Tri Thuc, the hospital director, said.

His father, Li Ding, 66, is still receiving treatment. He sleeps and eats without difficulty and his organs are functioning well, but he still needs a ventilator.

Ding's temperature became normal on Saturday night, three days after being admitted, but tests on Monday still showed positive for the virus, Thuc said. He is in quarantine.

In Vietnam, no local has contracted the nCoV yet.

yeah but all those businesses (+ the banks that lent too much), these high rise condotels such as Muong Thanh for instance are/were the recipe for a disaster. They'll blame the virus for their downfall but that's all on them, they've borrowed immense sums of money to build some kinda of Playmobil park that attracted very few people. Tourism will suffer but as it was never regulated, a purge was a no brainer in the first place

The banks have, as in many countries, encouraged the stupidity estate agents created in order to rip off fools.
The virus may make an excuse the aforementioned fools can use to explain how they weren't sheep that didn't follow a wolf.
However, it's nice to hear of people recovering, not just because ut's good for them and their families, but because it dispels the idiotic idea the virus is guaranteed death

I've just posted this on another thread, but it's far too funny to waste

Total morons with really stupid ideas are a plenty are out there, as this (fake) video shows

https://youtu.be/XoVayD0QCCU

Edit - Don't play in in front of the kids or anyone sensitive to naughty words.

can  you believe this...

In yesterday's Toui Tre news ,  Vietnam has suspended the random road side Alcohol breath tests for drivers & riders.

They think the test kits can be infected by diseased drivers.😳  That programme was only  started on 1/1/20.   Didn't last a month.
Nearly 10,000 people get killed on the roads each year. 

Or, maybe it's got something to do with the drop off in business from karaoke bars run by cops as a “side hustle”.

Ontheroad57 wrote:

can  you believe this...

In yesterday's Toui Tre news ,  Vietnam has suspended the random road side Alcohol breath tests for drivers & riders.

They think the test kits can be infected by diseased drivers.😳  That programme was only  started on 1/1/20.   Didn't last a month.
Nearly 10,000 people get killed on the roads each year. 

Or, maybe it's got something to do with the drop off in business from karaoke bars run by cops as a “side hustle”.

I'm off out for a few beers then! was really scared I would get some horrible disease off them re usable breathalyzers

The silly season has started.
This morning an Expat friend in Nha Trang was refused service at a dentist.

  No foreigners will be accepted there because of this virus .

Starting to become a more serious issue than some were thinking.

First death outside of China

colinoscapee wrote:

Starting to become a more serious issue than some were thinking.

First death outside of China

...and a 73 year old Việt Kiều American national in HCMC has become the 7th confirmed case in Việt Nam:

vietnamnews. vn/society/591720/viet-nam-confirms-seventh-coronavirus-case

Mike Wagner wrote:

The virus may not be as dangerous as SARS

Huh? The death rate so far is 50%  , remains to be seen how the remaining 14k infections turn out, so dead/infected is not relevant, dead/recovered is. Can you believe the official numbers of only 6 being infected in vietnam when 6 mil chinese tourists visit the country per year?

atomheart wrote:

Mike Wagner wrote:

The virus may not be as dangerous as SARS

Huh? The death rate so far is 50% 

Where do you get that figure?

According to the article I quoted and the one Colin posted, the death rate is less than 3 percent and is also falling in China

colinoscapee wrote:

Starting to become a more serious issue than some were thinking.

First death outside of China

He's still from Wuhan.  All deaths so far are from someone from Wuhan or was physically in Wuhan.

SteinNebraska wrote:

colinoscapee wrote:

Starting to become a more serious issue than some were thinking.

First death outside of China

He's still from Wuhan.  All deaths so far are from someone from Wuhan or was physically in Wuhan.

The point would be, how many people has he infected whilst in the Phillipines.

OceanBeach92107 wrote:

According to the article I quoted and the one Colin posted, the death rate is less than 3 percent and is also falling in China

See the end of my comment, there are 14k cases that could go either way, really no point to calculate based on number of infections. Death rate falling?? In 5 days the number of infected grew by 8k (total number of SARS infections back in 2003), and it takes more than a week to either heal or die. If it grows with this rate, soon we'll have 100k infections but still less than 1000 deaths, but do not celebrate that the death rate has fallen below 1%! Hope you understand my math...

You can find statistics on this page, upper-right corner you have dead/recovered numbers that are too small to draw any conclusion, but make more sense to calculate death rate with these and let's hope that the ratio doesn't stay 45:55.

https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps … 7b48e9ecf6

Just found out daughter's school is staying closed for one more week after Tet for this.  She was supposed to go back tomorrow.

SteinNebraska wrote:

Just found out daughter's school is staying closed for one more week after Tet for this.  She was supposed to go back tomorrow.

They wouldn't do this if the number of 6 confirmed cases in VN was real...

atomheart wrote:

SteinNebraska wrote:

Just found out daughter's school is staying closed for one more week after Tet for this.  She was supposed to go back tomorrow.

They wouldn't do this if the number of 6 confirmed cases in VN was real...

Maybe they are just taking precautions. WHO has annouced a worldwide emergency for only the sixth-time in its history. VN govt is yet to declare it a health emergency.

The best case scenario is to never have an outbreak here. Once it starts spreading, knowing that it is contagious during incubation, it can hardly be contained. Vietnam is a developing country with high population density... The press belongs to the communist party, so far they are downplaying like China did in December and early January. Hopefully the outcome will not be similar but I would take those odds...

I had everything booked for VN in mid March and then cancelled it last week due to 26 people quarantined in Da Nang which is one of the city I was visiting. I know the chances of me catching the coronavirus are low but as a precautionary, I decided to cancel. Lost most of the fees I paid for airfares and lodging but I'm OK with that. I can always go to VN when everything has subsided.

colinoscapee wrote:

atomheart wrote:

SteinNebraska wrote:

Just found out daughter's school is staying closed for one more week after Tet for this.  She was supposed to go back tomorrow.

They wouldn't do this if the number of 6 confirmed cases in VN was real...

Maybe they are just taking precautions. WHO has annouced a worldwide emergency for only the sixth-time in its history. VN govt is yet to declare it a health emergency.

Not exactly a health emergency, but they've already declared it an epidemic.
Vietnam declares novel coronavirus epidemic

Ho Chi Minh City building 500-bed makeshift hospital for novel coronavirus treatment

All schools and educational institutions, including international schools and universities, have extended the Tet break by one/two week/s.

Posting this here as I don't want to incur the wrath of OceanBeach92107 for posting on his thread on wearing masks.     Just kidding.

I was curious about the age profile of the fatalities and as far as I can tell there are none among children:  https://www.livescience.com/why-kids-mi … cases.html  (I really need to learn how to create those short custom links.)  This seems like it must be a big plus from a governmental public health standpoint. 

On the other hand, my guess is that the age distribution of participants on this forum looks a lot like the one of the fatalities.  Almost all the deaths seem to have been of people over 50.

The last report I saw was around 87% or 90% were over 60 and/or had other health problems.  Since the virus causes pneumonia those that are susceptible to regular old pneumonia anyway are the ones that are dying.

Ontheroad57 wrote:

can  you believe this...

In yesterday's Toui Tre news ,  Vietnam has suspended the random road side Alcohol breath tests for drivers & riders.

They think the test kits can be infected by diseased drivers.😳  That programme was only  started on 1/1/20.   Didn't last a month.
Nearly 10,000 people get killed on the roads each year. 

Or, maybe it's got something to do with the drop off in business from karaoke bars run by cops as a “side hustle”.

My friends in Danang were driving into these roadside checks, they were simply slowing down and driving right on thru, police did nothing to stop any foreigner .

Hi!   I neither believe or disbelieve your claim  of 26 people being quarantined in Da Nang.  It is the first I heard of it.  To my knowledge only 3 people had been infected and all 3 had been in Wuhan.

Can you point me to a place to see facts about that many people quarantined?
I am supposed to get married in late March far south of Saigon.  I wasn't worried but I wonder if there are things I'm not aware of "one the ground" in VN.

Brian999 wrote:

Hi!   I neither believe or disbelieve your claim  of 26 people being quarantined in Da Nang.  It is the first I heard of it.  To my knowledge only 3 people had been infected and all 3 had been in Wuhan.

Can you point me to a place to see facts about that many people quarantined?
I am supposed to get married in late March far south of Saigon.  I wasn't worried but I wonder if there are things I'm not aware of "one the ground" in VN.

Understand, you don't need to test positive to be quarantined.

The number sounds reasonable given the normal tourist and business traffic between Danang and China.

Brian999 wrote:

Hi!   I neither believe or disbelieve your claim  of 26 people being quarantined in Da Nang.  It is the first I heard of it.  To my knowledge only 3 people had been infected and all 3 had been in Wuhan.

Can you point me to a place to see facts about that many people quarantined?
I am supposed to get married in late March far south of Saigon.  I wasn't worried but I wonder if there are things I'm not aware of "one the ground" in VN.

https://corona.kompa.ai/

All flights have been suspended from China. Where I live, immigration came and even deported 2 Chinese that were here long term.  I think things have been handled well, I heard today that Thailand is still accepting Chinese travellers.

Strangely enough, the friend that was coming to visit me here with his wife just messaged me that their flight 3/21 from the US to HCMC has been cancelled.  That's still more than a month out.  There are other routes other than going through Hong Kong, which theirs was, that are available but we are going to let it go, not because of the virus itself, but because of what the claimed problems are doing with sites that we planned to see and other potential airline problems.

I wonder if I will get back to the US on my 2/29 flight.  It is leap day.  That's gotta mean something for the fear mongers.  Where's the "roll eye" smiley when I need it.

SteinNebraska wrote:

I wonder if I will get back to the US on my 2/29 flight.  It is leap day.  That's gotta mean something for the fear mongers.  Where's the "roll eye" smiley when I need it.

As your wife is Vietnamese, perhaps she has told you that this is also a leap year in lunar calendar, meaning there's not just one extra day this year but one extra month -- 13 months in total.

Travelling on a leap day in a double leap year? The "something" may be bigger than anyone can tell.