The Kompas newspaper on September 27 ran an article entitled "This is how Vietnam successfully extinguished the second wave of Coronavirus" which was followed by a series of articles on Vietnam’s dealing with the pandemic earlier, showing the newspaper’s care for Vietnam’s prevention of COVID-19.
In the most recent article, the author informed that Vietnam had its first case of COVID-19 in early January, but it had not reported any fatalities until July, while Indonesia reported the first case in March with over 10,000 fatalities so far, ranking first in the region in terms of COVID-19 deaths. The article also explored in detail how the COVID-19 pandemic had been handled in Vietnam, including suspension of flight routes, border closure, large-scale testing, exposure tracking and control of health interaction in communities.
Indonesia's Indogo newspaper reflects Vietnam’s prevention of COVID-19.
The Kompas newspaper quoted Guy Thwaites, Director of Oxford University Institute of Clinical Research in Ho Chi Minh city, saying that Vietnam is too familiar with infectious diseases as there have been many infectious diseases in the past 20 years.
Apart from the precise and rapid Government steps, the article also highlighted the fact that 97% of Vietnamese citizens agree with the Government's steps in dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the UK’s YouGov.
In the article "Handling COVID-19 and economic recovery, requesting Indonesia to imitate Vietnam", the author said that many countries in the world have experienced economic downturns caused by COVID-19, but some others have not yet fallen on the brink of recession in the middle of the pandemic, including Vietnam. While Indonesia faced economic recession with negative growth of 5.23% in the second quarter of 2020, Vietnam still achieved growth of 0.36%.
The article cites Mr. Yudhistira Adhinegara, an economist at the Institute of Economic and Financial Development (Indef) Bhima, Indonesia, saying that Vietnam’s effective and rapid processing and social assistance leads to high community discipline in following the Government's directions. The article also stated that Vietnam's approach to dealing with the pandemic while maintaining economic efficiency could be a model for Indonesia.
The Indonesian TV channel ANTV on September 24 also reported "Learning from Vietnam's success in handling the second COVID-19 wave" in which the author raised the issue of how a country with a direct border with China, where the COVID-19 outbreak was first announced, can cope with this pandemic.
According to the report, after successfully overcoming the first wave of COVID-19, Vietnam faced the second wave in July 2020 with the heart being Da Nang city, where more than 550 new cases of COVID-19 were reported, accounting for nearly half of all cases in Vietnam. According to this TV channel, the local authorities quickly "closed the city" by restricting activities and halting flights.
In addition, the Indonesian TV channel also praised the fact that Vietnam tested COVID-19 in series with a sample testing system. It quoted an interview granted by Guy Thwaites, Director of Oxford University Institute of Clinical Research in Ho Chi Minh city, saying that using this method, Vietnam can test 100,000 people in 20,000 tests. This allows them to save time and money. The TV channel said that is the secret that Indonesia needs to learn to be able to stamp out the pandemic like Vietnam.
Vietnam's successful handling of COVID-19 has also become a trending topic on other Indonesian online newspapers last week such as Tempo.com, IDN Times, Indogo and Indoonline./.