Friendly gestures in Vietnam during epidemic (Hanoi)
Hello citizens of Earth!
You might or might not be familiar with the Vietnamese culture but I can assure you I'm as "expat" or "tourist" as you are. I have lived in a dozen countries, I'm Vietnamese and I think you and I have some misunderstanding to clarify. I'd like to address the alarming rate of expats, tourists in Vietnam that are walking freely on our cities, offices, bars, shops without any regards to our government's constant effort on isolation or track-and-find to keep COVID-19's spread under control.
I'm sure you are all well educated and have your own belief, you also might have read previous W.H.O guideline on NOT wearing masks (to save them for medics). Your government's guidelines might even be different than ours. I'm not here to talk about W.H.O's political stance, their diligence or your country's approach, but about the fact that a healthy person can be positive with COVID-19 and still be fine, that person can directly or indirectly spread the virus to less healthy peoples and potentially kill them. We don't want you to become "Thanos" or a Covidiot so please think of our guidelines as cultural differences and cooperate with us during this period. As a friendly gesture, limit your exposure with people, but if you have to, do it wearing a mask - it helps protect others better than the wearer himself. Our goal is to control the infection rate and not reach city level lock down - which will disrupt medical or food's supply chain.
What a time to be in Vietnam right? Someday we will all look back on what we did today and feel good on our actions. I wish you, your friends and families well.