Home and away.

WHAT to do with a problem like Covid-19? Lockdown is the answer and that is where our debate remains stuck it seems. Few of us delved deeper into how a lockdown is or can be imposed and whether we could tweak the idea to suit our circumstances. As a health specialist, Mishal Sameer Khan, wrote in The News on Sunday over the weekend, the debate over the lockdown has paralysed the country, adding that each country uses different strategies to control population movement and mixing.

But it seems that three and a half months later, this nuance in the debate is beyond us. It should not be, for every success story around the world has included a home-grown solution, which has differed in each case, based on each state`s strengths and weaknesses.

Consider Vietnam, which continues to be quoted by us as the example of a country with few resources that has managed the virus well. But this success has many aspects to it. Perhaps one of the most important was that it took aggressive steps very early on. And this was because the country had already experienced SARS and avian flu in the past.

According to reports, it seems the country took measures early in 2020, months before other countries from travel restrictions to closing the border with China and increasing health checks at borders and other vulnerable places. They had closed schools by end January and initiated a contact-tracing operation.

By February, they were sealing hotspots, as we call them. For example, it also sealed an area with 10,000 people north of Hanoi. (It never went for a general, national-level lockdown.) Communication was also effective and began early the government said it was `declaring war` on the coronavirus at a time when the virus was still limited to China.

But perhaps one of Vietnam`s `biggest strengths` has been its single-party rule and authoritarian system. Its ability to effectively lock down areas and to monitor its citizens has been possible due to its large number of neighbourhood wardens andpublic security officers who keep a constant watch and are seldom disobeyed. The state keeps an eye on people`s movements as well as their social media accounts. (Some reports suggest that people are also encouraged to report on each other.) For example, one media report mentioned that when a hospital reported a high number of infections, police and local officials were ordered to visit every household in the relevant neighbourhoods and ask if they had gone to the hospital.

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