Well no one can accuse Vietnam of not going full-steam-ahead when it comes to forcing people to quarantine for 2 weeks, that is for sure.
Some out there may applaud this strategy on the government's part for almost completely limiting people's ability to move around and therefore to keep a virus where it is but at what point have the gone too far? This is the first time I have been introduced to how absolutely powerful a communist government can be over its population since moving here. Some say extreme times call for extreme measures and I guess it is a matter of perspective about whether or not they have taken this to too far of an extreme.
Going out in the morning or at dusk / just after sundown to get some exercise is a very popular thing in Vietnam. The people are generally relatively poor (compared to western standards) so the population like clockwork takes to the streets at dawn or dusk to do a bit of a run around or bike around to get their heart rates up and do a bit of exercise for free. Not now! Says the government, and they are being very serious about this.
While it hasn't happened to me personally, I have seen reports on the local FB page warning would-be exercisers in the expat community to stay very close to their homes since roadblocks and roaming units have been pulling up on people who are exercising, regardless of whether anyone else is around and arresting them and confiscating their bicycles.
The fines are a bit funny actually. It probably isn't very funny to the people that are receiving the fines but how much a person has to pay is based on how much income they have. The seriously poor are let go with a warning but those with some level of affluence are being fined around $100. This might seem like a small fine to someone in the west but you have to consider that if you make $1000 a month in Vietnam, you are doing much better than a majority of the population.
We are only supposed to be exiting our houses for the sake of obtaining food or medicine and this is meant to take place for another 12 days or so... I don't remember but it is more than a week. I am not Mr. Exercise or anything but I can imagine that an expat would be assumed to be in the higher income bracket because even though our salaries are embarrassing compared to western wages, generally speaking we make more than the average Vietnamese person. Therefore, the maximum fine would be attributed to us.
So I guess it is going to be an internet and Netflix filled 12 days for me from this point forward.
All images were made public by the Da Nang police department and are considered public domain