New lockdown measures in Vietnam

For a while there we were one of the only countries in the world that had returned to normal and I posted a few images of me and my friends at packed soccer games (well, as packed as you can expect a game to be in a very minor league) and everything was open. They had even started to re-open nightclubs and I'm pretty sure that here was the only country in the world that had a lockdown at all that allowed that.

While this was all going on I was a little bit concerned about the fact that not allowing any exposure at all would eventually lead to it being necessary to never allow anyone back in. Considering that this country to a relatively large degree depends on tourism, that might not necessarily be a great thing.

I don't know the science behind it and honestly, it has become such a hot-topic issue that I don't even want to go into it. I'll let the Instagram and FB experts argue about that until they are blue in the face... I would rather do literally anything else and our opinion, especially as visitors in a foreign country, means less than nothing.

Vietnam discovered a few cases in the city that has been my temporary home for the past couple of years and they immediately harshly locked down the entire city.

Just a few days ago these very popular beaches were teaming with domestic tourists who were all supplying the businesses here with some very needed revenue. That is all over now and i could have gotten in trouble simply for being there. Since I was on my own I think they let me slip by, especially since I just took a couple pics and then left.

The way it stands now is that you are meant to be staying in your residence for the time being and not leave at all unless it is to acquire food or other necessary supplies such as medical something or others.

There are still people milling about and exercising, and I took a bike trip up the coast to areas that almost no one lives in to discover that there were a few places open on the side of the road that were selling beverages, but they still would not allow any sort of socializing - not that I would do that with complete strangers. So while these people are technically breaking the law by being open at all, they need to make some money and are left alone (I'm guessing).

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The police patrol the streets at night to make sure that no one is gathering in any sort of numbers but I want to make it clear that they do not do this in any sort of vicious way. Sometimes the people who are gathering are simply members of the same family that are sitting in front of the house because it is cooler than being inside (in relation to temperature, not how chic it is) and the police will normally just play an announcement to the people if there are less than say 6 of them, and then move on.

I get a little annoyed at the way the media is broadcasting this story around the world and making it appear as though there is mass panic - because there isn't any. The city is calm and handling this a lot better than I think a lot of the rest of the world is handling it. The police do not have to force people with threats of violence to get them to comply because there does seem to be a sense of community spirit that exists in the population here.

There are also teams of government officials going around in trucks that are spraying disinfectant on areas that are suspected of being places that the original detected cases were meant to have been at some point. I guess that is good but again, I don't really have any idea.

For me personally, I am starting to lean more towards the side of that lockdowns don't actually work, they only delay the inevitable. However, since I am not a citizen here and generally don't like to make problems for people in an overall sense, I am not going to rock the boat.

I also don't believe that masks are actually effective, but it has been mandated by the local authorities that you must do so and I therefore comply. You wont see anyone getting a "medical exemption" to not wear a mask because they are super claustrophobic or any such nonsense.

So basically I am just saying that the media scare tactics are in full-effect and for once I can see with my own eyes how much they are trying to make things appear far more dire than they actually are. Someone from Reuters recently joined a local expat Facebook group to see if she could interview any of the locals here and I am sure they will get a lot of takers. Hopefully it isn't the nutjob ones.