I've been seeing some questionably framed comments on this particular portion of the thread. For those making a good faith effort to understand the #Vietnam Covid response and its consequences, there are a few things to keep in mind: https://twitter.com/barnaby_flower/status/1351559678593929221

A large portion of these lost jobs have been in tourism and due to the knock-on effects of those direct job losses. Except for repatriation flights, others with (very hard to get) special permission, and small numbers crossing illegally by land, people are not entering VN.

However, in all but the highest periods of perceived danger, goods have been moving. That part of the economy isn't unaffected (e.g. goods that used to fly on passenger flights are now hindered), but "border closure" isn't as drastic there.

This is important to understand because the job losses from those policies aren't simply due to Vietnamese domestic policy: they are as much the consequence of other countries' poor pandemic responses. Had they pursued aggressive Zero Covid responses, said closure would be...

...unnecessary. The restriction of population movement isn't an isolated strategy, it is a response to the (largely) failed strategies of individual nations and the collective failure of the international community to have coordinated pandemic responses ready *before* all this.

That is to say, 1.3 million job losses aren't simply the result of Vietnam's pandemic strategy or nationalist border attitudes; they are as much the ongoing consequence of Vietnam waiting for the world to get its shit together.

But not doing so would be disastrous. Failure to see that only plays into the false dichotomy that one must pick public health or economic health.

There is no economic health without public health.

Full stop.