Page 70 - GHES-2-4

Global Health Economics and
Sustainability
Assessing Vietnam’s pandemic lockdown

after the second-dose vaccination coverage surpassed 45% experienced two significant pandemic waves: the first from
(The People’s Committee of HCM City, 2021). May to July 2021, and the second from July to September 2021.
We synthesized data on policy interventions from During the early stages of the COVID-19 outbreak, Bac
government portals and mainstream media, identifying Giang was the hardest-hit province. On May 25, 2021, the
148 interventions across 49 provinces and centrally run number of new confirmed cases reached 375. In response,
cities. Interventions were considered to occur together local governments implemented Directive No.16/CT-TTg
only if they were implemented under the same directive in specific areas to curb the virus’s spread. Unfortunately,
within a 7-day timeframe during the data collection the initial intervention on May 16, 2021, was insufficient to
process. This assumption was tested and validated using control the infection rate, as indicated by a positive slope
sensitivity analysis in a previous study (Islam et al., 2020). change of 11.9 (p = 0.036) in the post-intervention period.
However, subsequent interventions proved more effective,
Unlike some previous studies (Islam et al., 2020; Tran
et al., 2020), we did not use the Oxford dataset (Hale et al., with the trend shifting to a negative slope change of −12.1
(p = 0.045) and −3.31 (p = 0.249), respectively.
2021). While the Oxford dataset is valuable for cross-
country comparisons (e.g., evaluating how well Vietnam In contrast, the pandemic’s impact on Lang Son and Son
performs relative to other Southeast Asian countries), La was less severe during this time. The implementation
this study focused exclusively on Vietnam, with the of Directive No.16/CTT-TTg in targeted areas effectively
implementation of government directives as the primary controlled the number of new daily cases to fewer than 20.
type of intervention collected. In addition, Son La implemented restrictions on internal
movement during the second stage, which required people
In our study, data on the number of new confirmed cases returning from pandemic-affected areas to undergo
per province and centrally run city were collected through centralized quarantine. Although this intervention did not
the Ministry of Health’s data gateway for the period from reverse the trendline (slope value = 0.39 with p = 0.008), it
April 26, 2021, to October 1, 2021. Twelve provinces were created the conditions for subsequent interventions to be
excluded from this study due to the unavailability of data more effectively executed.
on policy interventions or because the number of new
cases was insufficient for meaningful analysis. 3.1.2. Red river delta
All statistical analyses were performed using Python This study divided the Red River Delta region into two
version 3.6 (Python.org, 2016) and R version 4.0.0 (R Core subgroups based on the severity of the pandemic. The first
Team, 2018). First, the data were cleaned and preprocessed group included Bac Ninh, Ha Nam, and Ha Noi, while the
before being fitted into the Ordinary Least Squares model second group included Hai Duong, Hung Yen, Nam Dinh,
provided by the statsmodels package (Jonathan, 2009). Ninh Binh, Thai Binh, and Vinh Phuc.
The model results were then plotted using the matplotlib In the first group, Bac Ninh and Ha Nam used the
package (Matplotlib, 2021). Finally, the results were same strategy, implementing Directive No.16/CT-TTg in
combined and analyzed using a random-effects meta- targeted areas. This tactic was effective, as the infection
analysis with a meta package in R.
trendline shifted to a negative trajectory within <2 months,
3. Results and discussions with the peak number of new infections not exceeding
100 cases/day. In Ha Noi, as illustrated in Figure 3, a
3.1. ITS model results restriction on internal movement was applied on July 7,
In this study, we applied the ITS model to 49 provinces and 2021, followed by the city-wide enforcement of the strictest
centrally run cities in Vietnam. The results are grouped directive (Directive No.16/CT-TTg) on July 24, 2021. These
by region for easier interpretation, as localities within the interventions successfully reversed the trend from positive
same region tend to have similar pandemic responses and to negative (slope change value = −4.7, p = 0).
government interventions. The regions are presented from In the second group, the provinces mainly implemented
north to south, beginning with Northern Midlands and Directives No.15/CT-TTg and No.16/CT-TTg for specific
Mountain, followed by the Red River Delta, North Central, locations. As a result, the infection trendline in the
Central Coastline, Central Highlands, Southeast, and post-intervention period was successfully controlled.
concluding with the Mekong River Delta. Furthermore, between July 25, 2021, and August 15, 2021,
five out of six provinces implemented restrictions on
3.1.1. Northern midlands and mountain areas internal movement to prevent further spread of the virus.
In this region, the ITS analysis was conducted for three These policies were effective, leading to a negative infection
provinces: Bac Giang, Lang Son, and Son La. The region rate in all affected localities.

Volume 2 Issue 4 (2024) 6 https://doi.org/10.36922/ghes.3423