Vietnam’s Coronavirus Death Toll Is Zero. The Cost? Total Surveillance.

The nation’s response to the pandemic reveals a resourceful — and often troubling — use of technology

Georgina Quach
OneZero

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Motorbike riders with face masks are stuck in traffic during the morning peak hour on May 19, 2020 in Hanoi, Vietnam.
Motorbike riders with face masks are stuck in traffic during the morning peak hour on May 19, 2020, in Hanoi, Vietnam. Photo: Linh Pham/Getty Images

The rooftop of an apartment block in central Hanoi seems like an odd space to host a marathon. But when Vietnam imposed aggressive restrictions on outdoor movement in response to the coronavirus, athlete Nguyên Tiên Dat was forced to adjust his track to the strict bounds of state-sanctioned exercise. Last month, Dat became Vietnam’s first runner to complete a marathon by looping the 25-meter length of his rooftop terrace. Logging the 860 laps on Strava, a mobile app for tracking runs, Dat’s message to his Strava followers was to stay active — and stay at home.

Millions of Vietnamese citizens like Dat have made preventing the spread of Covid-19 a priority. It’s the result of a sweeping public education campaign that relied heavily on social media and state-controlled news to instill a sense of civic duty in combating the coronavirus. Vietnam’s response has been an underreported success: The communist country has logged 326 cases of Covid-19 and zero deaths, and experts say there is no evidence to suggest a systematic cover-up.

Other countries in the region have deployed high-tech interventions. Taiwan…

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Georgina Quach
OneZero
Writer for

Georgina is a British-Vietnamese culture writer for The Guardian, Telegraph and TLS, exploring diversity and the intersection between technology and race