For the most part the people of this country are rather compliant when the government tells them to do stuff. Perhaps this is part of Vietnam being communist, I have no idea and don't care to speculate. I do notice that despite a noticeable police presence, people tend to behave themselves and do what they are told. I have heard that this is because there are tons of plainclothes officers and also a lot of informants on the streets. Again, I have no proof of this but it would explain the extreme compliance in most any situation.
However, this is also a relatively poor country and at least in Da Nang, where I live, the city has been on rather extreme lockdown for the past month. It started out as 2 weeks, then was extended another two weeks.
This included a lot of things that even other parts of the world have not seen including the following
- No travel to / from Da Nang without a business reason for doing so such as post or supplies and then the drivers need to be confirmed covid-free
- Masks must be worn by everyone at all times when outdoors
- In some situations where infection was suspected or confirmed, entire neighborhoods were totally locked down with no one allowed in or out until all were tested
- No leaving your house for anything other than acquiring food or medicine. Of course certain other emergencies would allow it as well
- All restaurants are closed, even for takeaway
- All non essential businesses are closed - which is most of them
The normally busy streets of the city are almost completely vacant of traffic of any sort and people attempting to exercise by bike or running were being turned back if leaving their neighborhoods and in extreme cases arrested.
Everyone was complying, but now after nearly a month we are seeing signs of people that have had enough and are slowly but surely violating the rules.
I have started noticing people that would normally be everywhere on the streets peddling various foodstuffs are back on the streets - now without permission. They travel around the neighborhoods and in some cases even have small loudspeakers announcing what they have for sale. They aren't even being covert about it.
The thing is, these men and women aren't trying to supplement their investments on the stock market... these people are most likely in danger of not being able to eat if they don't make some money and they haven't been allowed to work or make any money for nearly a month now.
I teach English online, so business has actually been booming for me in these times as people all around the world are being forced to get their education at home. For these folks that deal with point of sale in a street-food way, they have no other way of making any money and if they have the choice of starving or breaking the law, they have clearly made their choice. I think we are going to see more and more of this as time goes on.
We are also seeing entire families take to the streets to play badminton or do some sort of bike-riding or jogging and tonight I was actually bold enough to join them. I even saw some coffee shops that were quietly selling take-away beverages despite the ban on doing so.
Basically, I feel as though the government's heart was in the right place trying to completely prevent EVERYONE from getting covid but a poor country like this one is going to have the people make a choice in the not too distant future that they will NOT stay home any longer, even if there is a terrible virus out there. People need to make money, people need to eat, people need to get outside and exercise and I think we are seeing the compliant populace at the end of their wits.
The announcement was meant to come on Tuesday about whether the lockdown was going to be lifted after 4 weeks. I would be willing to bet that the government will start to open things back up even if their scientists say that they shouldn't, because the people are going to "unlock" anyway and things could get ugly.