(CN) — The champion of the world in the fight against Covid-19, without any real competition, is Vietnam. Despite a 900-mile border with China, Vietnam mobilized and halted the spread of the virus with a mere 355 cases, all of whom recovered. No one has died from Covid-19 in a nation of 100 million people.
Vietnam’s success can be attributed to strict quarantine of infected patients and rigorous contact tracing. Even in Uruguay, the success story of Latin America, there have been 936 cases and 27 deaths, in a country of 3 million people.
One patient in Vietnam was near death. Stephen Cameron, a Scottish pilot for Vietnam Airlines, visited a few bars in Ho Chi Minh City on the night of March 14. The ex-pat bar in the pricey part of town was filled with Saint Patrick’s Day revelers celebrating the last night before the lockdown and closure of bars and restaurants in Vietnam.
Daily reports in the Vietnamese press and television followed the case of the gravely ill Brit. He was placed in an induced coma for 68 days while his blood was pumped out of his body, oxygenated, and pumped back into his body. He was on a ventilator the entire time.
When his lung function fell to 10% capacity, hundreds of Vietnamese offered lungs for a transplant. According to the BBC, teams of medical specialists from across the country held daily conferences in the effort to save Cameron's life.
Finally, in mid-June, he began to recover without a lung transplant and now, 45 pounds lighter and awake, he has begun what will be a long rehabilitation. His flight back to Scotland is scheduled for next week.
I went to Vietnam in March of last year. I spent a month in the capital, Hanoi, and another month in Hue, the ancient capital and the site of the most significant battle of the war against the United States. I also visited a couple of smaller cities.
In economic terms, Vietnam has performed admirably. According to the World Bank the country has virtually eliminated severe poverty and is now an emerging industrial powerhouse with GDP increases approaching those of China.
My first hotel in Hanoi had few rooms, but the owner spoke English and reminded me that Hanoi is 1,000 years old. "We live without crime and with increasing prosperity and without repression. Of course we are content. Just one generation ago nearly 90% of the families were surviving by growing rice."
In Sapa, a tourist town in the mountains near the Chinese border, the area is populated by Hmong and Toy minorities. The economic activity is entirely devoted to upper tier tourism, financed by Chinese companies and built for Chinese tourists.
Western tourists are regularly visited by English-speaking fabric vendors from the ethnic communities. One Hmong woman invited me to spend the night with her family, a common alternative to hotels known as home stays.
"For $25 we'll rent a motorbike and go to my hamlet. You can spend the night and we will roast some pig meat. You have a private bathroom like France."
The embroidered fabrics these women offered were gorgeous, multiple shades of indigo woven into small purses and totes. "My husband farms rice and corn and never comes to town. I stay three days to try to sell my fabrics. I sleep outdoors rather than pay for a room," she told me.
Sapa is in the midst of a building boom, for the most part high-rise hotels for Chinese middle-class tourists. Nearby is the highest mountain in Indochina, Fan Si Pan, 10,300 feet.
