Monthly Archives: April 2020

Tim Walker’s Vietnam with Coronavirus II

Consider the impending aftermath of COVID-19; the outcome once Novel Coronavirus has lost popularity and people come to realise that we allowed the world’s functionality to be largely devastated by an illness less deadly than influenza.

Here in Buon Ma Thuot, Vietnam, an isolated region practically unaffected by Coronavirus, other than most businesses being forced to close as a Government-imposed two-week lockdown requires people to stay indoors although anybody choosing to go outdoors must wear a mask as most Viet folk would have done anyway, not much has changed.

Once the world economy recovers and things start to return to a state of normalcy, we will likely discover that, due to prolonged periods of personal isolation, not only has this much-hyped COVID-19 been (mostly) expunged from the human race, so too will have most other airborne contagions.

Vietnam, with its highly concentrated population of almost 100 million, still has just 245 confirmed cases of COVID, with no related deaths.

With a shortage of human vessels to transmit its existence I cannot imagine the common cold will be nearly as prevalent as it once was; add to that the sudden caution with which most/all of us were forced to treat our health/wellbeing, I wouldn’t be altogether surprised to find that cold, influenza, along with airborne stomach viruses, are no longer a scourge on human health.

New Zealand, with its comparatively sparse populous of around 5 million, have surpassed 1000 confirmed cases and have suffered 1 related death (also a plethora of ridiculous radio advertisements where an uninspiring female voice lists ‘activities to help with boredom’, or similarly pathetic topics, during the lockdown).

Therefore, once those radio ads go off the air and the world reverts to its boastful self, I’m going to be excited to live amid a time where cold, flu, and other viral contagions (for example, COVID-19), are virtually non-existent.

Here’s to good health.

 

 

Article by Tim Walker

Edited by O V Reaction

Photography by Vera S Nussabad