02/02/2022

Researchers Ask: Why Some Countries Were Better Prepared for COVID

One surprising answer: Trust

Before 2020, Vietnam looked particularly vulnerable to a pandemic. The Southeast Asian country, a single-party state with nearly 100 million people, scored low on international assessments of universal health coverage and had relatively few hospital beds for its population, as well as a closed-off political system.

Instead, Vietnam emerged as an early pandemic success story. Long after the coronavirus [COVID-19] began to spread in neighboring China, Vietnam maintained low levels of infections and fatalities even as wealthy countries with more robust health systems, including the United States and much of Europe, struggled.

A new study of pandemic preparedness across 177 countries and territories appears to have found a key element in Vietnam’s success: trust.

Please select this link to read the complete article from The Washington Post.