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Vietnam will begin fully reopening from December 2021 after almost two years of complete closure to the world the nation announced yesterday.
Vietnam has a road plan to fully reopen in June 2022. Firstly, the country will reopen popular tourist destinations in December, including Halong Bay, Hoi An, Nha Trang, and Dalat to fully vaccinated foreign tourists from safe destinations. The nation is yet to declare what will constitute a safe destination.
Then, as Vietnam’s vaccination rate continues to rise, the country will slowly begin reopening all areas of the nation before a full reopening by June 2022.
The Vietnamese government stated, “We are moving step by step, cautiously but flexibly to adapt to real situations of the pandemic.”
However, it remains unclear what the Vietnamese authorities categorize as truly safe.
Currently, only Vietnamese repatriates, foreign investors, and highly skilled workers are allowed to enter the country under very strict circumstances. The nation has witnessed a shortage of English teachers since the borders closed and foreign arrivals struggled to enter.
Vietnam’s Proposed Phu Quoc Reopening
Vietnam was set to reopen the popular island destination of Phu Quoc this month, but a slow vaccination rollout has pushed the reopening date back until later this year.
An official statement suggested that Vietnam would allow fully vaccinated foreign arrivals to enter Phu Quoc if they provide evidence of a negative COVID-19 test.
The Vietnamese government had planned to fully vaccinate all Phu Quoc citizens before fully reopening this month. But delays have prevented that.
Phu Quoc’s reopening would have been the first time international arrivals could enter the nation since February 2020. It looks like Phu Quoc will reopen alongside other tourist hotspots in Vietnam, such as Hoi An, Nha Trang, and Dalat instead of being the first destination to reopen.
The COVID-19 Situation Within Vietnam
Vietnam had successfully contained COVID-19 throughout much of 2020 before the Delta variant entered the nation and plunged large portions of the country into lockdown.
COVID-19 cases were in the low single digits for 14 months in Vietnam. However, the 7-day case average in Vietnam peaked at 13,040 per day. Since then, cases have started to decline, and the current 7-day average is 6,184 cases per day.
Vietnam's vaccination rate, on the other hand, has been slow. The nation has fully vaccinated just 24.3 percent of the population. That puts the vaccination rate behind much of Southeast Asia.
However, it will take another 22 days to fully vaccinate another 10 percent of the population at the current vaccination rollout speed.
The move is very similar to neighboring Thailand, which has reopened certain parts of the nation to fully vaccinated tourists. These spots include Phuket, Koh Tao, and Koh Samui.
In the last year, foreign arrivals into Vietnam dropped to 3.8 million, with the majority of those visitors entering in the first two months of the year. The travel and tourism sector accounts for 12 percent of Vietnam’s GDP, and that’s a significant number.
Southeast Asia’s Reopening
Southeast Asia has closed for the vast majority of the pandemic. But the nation is slowly beginning to reopen to fully vaccinated travelers.
Thailand is preparing to fully reopen to fully vaccinated tourists in the coming months, after reopening various parts of the nation to vaccinated visitors in July.
Furthermore, Malaysia, Singapore, and Bali have all declared reopening plans before the end of 2021. Bali will reopen to fully vaccinated British and American tourists this month.
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Opinions expressed here are the author’s alone, not those of any bank, credit card issuer, hotel, airline, or other entity. This content has not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by any of the entities included within the post.
Isiah
Thursday 7th of October 2021
Vietnam use to be a fun place to travel because it was cheap and the country is beautiful.
However, I have some good friends who stayed there during these last 18 months and it is absolutely horrific what happened there.
- Expats in Da Nang during the 2nd lockdown were forced to test + give their blood with a needle.
- Saigon has rolled out a vaccine passport and the rest of the country is doing it too
- Expats are being forced to get the vaccine. One guy I know ended up in the hospital with blood clots and almost died. He was in the ICU for a week.
- Saigon had a 3 month lockdown and some people starved to death because they weren't allowed to go buy food. The military was suppose to help these people but there was simply too many. The military posted tons of TikTok videos and propaganda showing themselves helping but this only helped a few people.
- Anyone who speaks out what is going on is arrested by the communist regime.
- One trusted person I knows Vietnamese gf tested positive for COVID-19 last year and the regime didn't count her as positive.
- In 2020, the Vietnamese government posted the photo, name, personal details, and every location of a person who tested positive on national television.
- Military controls the streets during lockdowns and has checkpoints everywhere.
Vietnam has made Australia look like child's play but it rarely makes the news even the alternative media.
There is better places to travel that don't trample on all your freedoms and dignity.
Christian
Saturday 9th of October 2021
@Isiah, I used to travel to Vietnam yearly but skipped last year and this year. On the positive side, not being able or willing to travel to a country where the regime exercises apartheid, it offered me the opportunity to discover new countries that I would otherwise never have known. Problems create new opportunities. The loss of revenue and tourism doesn’t stop whenever all the restrictions are lifted. They are permanent losses because many regular tourists, as in my case, will never go back as they are opting for returning to their newly discovered destinations.
P
Thursday 7th of October 2021
@Isiah,
It's sad because I miss it very much, but it will take a long time before I am comfortable going anywhere in the world where this sort of thing happened. The idea that nationwide house arrests can be enacted at the drop of a hat severely limits where I think I will go in the future.
ajdj
Thursday 7th of October 2021
June 2022 geez..
Liberty
Thursday 7th of October 2021
SEA used to be such a free region before they started taking all that globalist money, now those nations are just vaccine dictatorships.
Isiah
Thursday 7th of October 2021
@Liberty, agreed. Vietnam's PM has many photos with Klaus Schwab and clearly got paid off while his people can barely afford to eat.