[ad_1]
Vietnam’s Ho Chi Minh city – Every call from Vietnam will make Thai Duong’s heart beat faster.
For Duong, who grew up in District 4 of Ho Chi Minh City but currently lives in California, every contact with home can bring bad news. Since the fourth wave of the outbreak in Vietnam turned the country’s containment of the virus from a success story into a nightmare, he has lost four family members due to COVID-19.
No place has been hit harder than Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam’s largest city, where Yang’s uncle died of COVID-19 on September 3 after being placed in the hospital’s grading system, at the most critical level. .
“The mortality rate at that level is 94%,” Duong told Al Jazeera.
“Everyone is struggling to survive. If they have not yet contracted the new coronavirus, it will be difficult for them to get food.”
Driven by the highly disseminated Delta variant, the fourth wave in Vietnam began on April 27. At that time, only 35 people died of COVID-19, while the total number of infections was just under 4,000. Today, more than 13,000 people have died and the number of cases exceeds 520,000.
About 80% of deaths and half of infections occurred in Ho Chi Minh City.
Ho Chi Minh City has a population of 9 million and has been under a total lockdown since August 23. Residents are not even allowed to leave their homes to go shopping.With restrictions Set to last Until September 15, the newly elected then prime minister Pham Minh Chinh conducted a large-scale inspection of the residents and deployed soldiers of the city in order to execute the stay-in-home order in the family order and help provide food.
On August 30, 2021, as part of the authorities’ plan to stop the spread of COVID-19, a woman looks out from behind a temporary roadblock made of planks and ladders to restrict residents’ movements [File: Manan Vatsyayana/AFP]
Vietnamese military personnel stand guard at a checkpoint in Ho Chi Minh City on August 23, 2021, after the government implemented stricter lockdown measures until September 16 to stop the spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus [Pham Tho/AFP]The once bustling streets of Ho Chi Minh City are now dotted with security checkpoints, some of which are full of soldiers armed with rifles.
“It’s like martial law,” said a political analyst who asked not to be named. “A soldier with such a gun is unprecedented.”
‘Frustrating, heartbreaking’
However, despite strict measures, the number of infections in Ho Chi Minh City continues to rise, with more than 200 deaths every day. On Monday, the city reported more than 7,000 new cases and 233 deaths, up from 5,889 a week ago.
The surge has overwhelmed the hospital. Doctors and nurses from other parts of the country have rushed to Ho Chi Minh City to help treat the infected, while the government has offered to pay for the rehabilitation of patients and keep them in the hospital to help exhausted medical staff. At the same time, although the city has multiple field hospitals, many COVID-19 patients are still forced to recuperate at home.
“It’s frustrating. It’s heartbreaking,” said Trang, a 21-year-old medical volunteer, who only revealed her name. “Now, a doctor may need to treat 200 to 1,000 patients.”
“Some people blame the government; some people blame the medical system, but no one wants this.”
A doctor said that he was in a state of “insomnia” after working in a 24-hour shift.
“This is really terrible,” said the doctor, who asked not to be named. “Vietnam is not fully prepared for this pandemic.”
With the collapse of the medical system, the charity Giang Kim Cuc va cac Cong Su helped by providing oxygen tanks for people with severe symptoms and collecting the bodies of people who died at home. A video released by the organization last week showed volunteers in full protective gear carrying a plastic-wrapped body into the back of a van, with distressed family members watching.
“We have a lot of calls and messages,” a spokesperson for the organization said. “Every family has its own story [of loss]. “
In addition to dealing with the loss of loved ones, residents of Ho Chi Minh City are also struggling to obtain food and bottled water.
Before the blockade, Deputy Defense Minister Wu Mingliang stated that the military will cooperate with volunteers and union workers to provide food for families, and a government official told the newspaper “Tuoi Tre” that Ho Chi Minh City needs to provide 11,000 tons of goods per day. Its residents.
The official stated that the government has the ability to deliver.
But residents of the city said the distribution of food and financial aid was either insufficient or non-existent. In some cases, aid will flow to those who are not most in need.
“People are miserable,” said Nguyen Thi Duy Huong, project manager of Saigon Children’s Charity, which previously focused on education but has turned to providing basic necessities for families. “After talking with them, we learned that life is extremely difficult. They lack food. The most basic thing, food.”
A new mother living in the affluent community of Thao Dien told Al Jazeera that she did not eat enough and spent several hours a day securing food for her family while breastfeeding her two-month-old daughter.
Efforts to find food require searching for individuals selling food that can be delivered in the same area on social media platforms such as Facebook and Zalo, placing orders in overwhelmed stores (it may take several days to arrive), or trying to pass overburdened Delivery service, Grab.
“Now, it’s under great pressure because I can hardly find a reliable source of food,” said the Taiwanese, who would rather just use her last name, Wong. “Now, with a total lockdown, it’s hard to buy even diapers.”
Although Huang hopes to leave the country, she has been unable to obtain her daughter’s documents during the lockdown.
“Basically, we are trapped here, even if we want to leave,” she said.
“Huge demand for very basic support”
The charity stated that the situation is very bad for the city’s poorest residents, most of whom are migrant workers. They say that many people are struggling to survive, go out to work within a few months, and are prevented from returning to their hometowns before the lockdown.
Ngo Thi Bich Huyen has been delivering food to migrant workers living in rented houses in the Go Vap area. He found that many people did not receive any support from the government, and for those who received help, the assistance was not enough.
“Some of the families I asked did not see any rescue plan provided by the government,” Huyen said.
“Some days, they have no food to eat, they have to ask people outside to give them some instant noodles,” she said. “They are really tired and they need more help from the government.”
On July 30, 2021, a woman was vaccinated with AstraZeneca at Trung Vuong Middle School in Hanoi [Manan Vatsyayana/AFP]
On August 11, 2021, health workers wearing personal protective equipment (PPE) collect swab samples from local residents at Dong Xuan Market in Hanoi for coronavirus testing [Nhac Nguyen/AFP]A recent survey by a local news source found that 62% of 69,132 participants were unemployed due to COVID-19. Among the unemployed, about 40% of the respondents said they did not receive any support. For those who did receive aid, only 3.5% said the aid came from the government.
Damian Roberts, executive director of the Saigon Children’s Organization, told Al Jazeera: “We have never seen this kind of demand in a quarter of a century.” “We see a huge demand for very basic support.”
Although it is difficult for people in need to get enough food, a 26-year-old U.S. citizen in Puri County stated that since August 27, she has received two free food packages from the government and 1.2 million VND. Approximately US$52.
When she received the second food package, she was asked to pose for a photo.
“I’m standing next to this guy in the green uniform. The guy in the green uniform is holding the bottom of the bag and looks like it is handing it to me,” she said of the photo. “I’m still working… I think I am definitely someone who shouldn’t help.”
Analysts said that because the restrictions will continue for at least another 9 days, the government must speed up the vaccination rate-only 3.3 million people Two doses have been given to 96 million people-and support for the poor and those in need has been strengthened.
“I really disagree with the government’s way of solving problems from top to bottom, rather than solving problems from the root of the problem, such as formulating fiscal programs to support people, spending more money to support the poor, and spending more money to buy vaccines,” one Said a Vietnamese political analyst who asked not to be named.
“Deploying a bunch of troops and police on the street… it’s unsustainable,” she said. “Why do people take to the streets? That’s because they don’t have a job, and they don’t have food.”
[ad_2]
Source link