Policy Responses to the COVID-19 Pandemic in Vietnam

The COVID-19 pandemic has become one of the most serious health crises in human history, spreading rapidly across the globe from January 2020 to the present. With prompt and drastic measures, Vietnam is one of the few countries that has largely succeeded in controlling the outbreak. This result is derived from a harmonious combination of many factors, with the policy system playing a key role. This study assessed the policy responses to the COVID-19 pandemic in Vietnam from the early days of the outbreak in January 2020 to 24 July 2020 (with a total of 413 cases confirmed and 99 days of no new cases infected from the local community) by synthesizing and evaluating 959 relevant policy documents in different classifications. The findings show that the Vietnamese policy system responded promptly, proactively, and effectively at multiple authority levels (33 different agencies from the national to provincial governments), using a range of policy tools and measures. Parallel to the daily occurrence of 2.24 new cases, 5.13 new policy documents were issued on average per day over the study period. The pandemic policy response over the first six months in Vietnam were divided into four periods, I (23 January–5 March), II (6–19 March), III (20 March–21 April), and IV (22 April–24 July). This paper synthesizes eight solution groups for these four anti-pandemic phases, including outbreak announcements and steering documents, medical measures, blockade of the schools, emergency responses, border and entry control measures, social isolation and nationwide social isolation measures, financial supports, and other measures. By emphasizing diversification of the policy responses, from the agencies to the tools and measures, the case study reviews and shares lessons from the successful COVID-19 prevention and control in Vietnam that could be useful for other nations.