Vietnam’s Anti-COVID-19 Fight Deserves More Recognition: UN Official

Vietnam’s anti-coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) fight deserves more recognition, United Nations (UN) Resident Coordinator Kamal Malhotra has said when mentioning the January 28 ranking of the Lowy Institute about the most successful countries in handling the pandemic. Vietnam was ranked the second behind New Zealand in the index, but the Southeast Asian country had a better response to fighting the virus than New Zealand, the UN official believed. No other country with the same population has managed to contain the virus the way Vietnam has, Mr. Malhotra highlighted, citing Egypt with over 176,000 COVID-19 patients among 102 million people and the Democratic Republic of the Congo with 24,000 positive cases among 89 million people as examples. The data about Vietnam’s anti-COVID-19 fight has been recorded in real-time and there is no coercion in measures taken here, he affirmed. He attributed Vietnam’s success in this fight to three things, namely contact tracing, strategic testing, and clear messaging. As of February 22 morning, Vietnam, with a total population of 97 million, has recorded 2,383 COVID-19 infections, including 35 deaths and 1,717 recoveries, the Ministry of Health said. (VTC News, businessinsider.com, vtc.vn)