When I left Hanoi on February 28th, its streets were still choked with traffic, most restaurants and cafes were packed, and there were only a few minor signs of the pandemic threat. There were more facemasks, especially on waiters and shopkeepers. At some dumpy pho joint, I spotted a sign requesting customers to not smoke, “to prevent the spread of the coronavirus,” and at a pharmacy, soapberry incense sticks were for sale, “To Fumigate Corona Virus.” Some long-distance bus companies would not accept Chinese passengers.
A month later, all of Vietnam’s streets are empty, for even without any coronavirus death, the nation has also gone on lockdown. By preventing a mostly poor population from making a living, the government risks provoking widespread anger or social unrest, but it must do this because it believes it has no choice. Indecision will result in mass deaths. Since Vietnam is already a totalitarian state, it doesn’t need pretexts to introduce draconian measures. Adding to its crippling economic cost, Vietnam is also blocking foreigners from entering.
Every state is being tested by this global crisis. Turkmenistan is responding by not using the word “coronavirus” and even arresting people for wearing facemasks. It has no infection, it insists, so there’s no problem. The calamity in adjacent Iran has simply not spilled over.
Some think this crisis has been planned by the US government to cull useless eaters and to transfer wealth from terrified chumps to the 1%, and there won’t be any meaningful resistance, since starving citizens, locked inside, will only beg their criminal government to save them. You can’t organize if you can’t come within six feet of your neighbors, and if you do it online, they’ll come and getcha! Beaten down, they’ll line up to receive their food ration.
On February 28th, Trump said of the coronavirus, “It’s going to disappear. One day it’s like a miracle, it will disappear.” A lot has already disappeared, just not the virus. The breath of this is unprecedented, and step by staggering step, we’ll learn about its fearful depth. Your entire way of life may have disappeared.
Let’s hear how some folks are doing, and what do they make of all this.
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