The second time corona virus outbreak in Vietnam was from 10 Mar 2020 by the 17th patient who backed from UK. At the end days of Mar, almost the flight cancelled to ban people do not go everywhere to push the spreading rapidly, Vietnam is not exceptional. So that’s why Vietnamese people were traveling, studying, working from over the world, we must comeback VN by the way. Our government required using all concentrate camps of military, all university dormitories to become the places for people comeback from foreign countries. They also asked all armies, polices, students to be volunteers for fighting Covid 19.
I returned Vietnam when corona virus has spread widely and has out broken too fast. Almost flights from foreigner countries had cancelled to avoid the stronger influence. Luckily, I arrived Tan Son Nhat Airport after a long flight (CEB – HKG – SGN) which took totally 24 hours and the first people I met are nurses, doctors and volunteers for virus battle with three buses to go to the quarantine place.
I felt relieved when I can come to my country while the virus ramped up day to day with the huge amount people who were confirmed cases.
The isolated place is a dormitory of National University in Ho Chi Minh where has spaces for 40,000 people to stay in. There are 4 people in a room which has enough facilities and necessary items (shampoo, toothpaste, soap, blanket, mat, tissues….)
As for the volunteers, they are very friendly, enthusiasm with us. It seems they gave away the place including the necessary things, as the spirit of Uncle Ho’s soldiers.
There were 4 people in a room who were from different countries. In my room, we were from United State, Malaysia, The Philippines, after greetings, we started cleaning our room together.
Everyday, some soldiers must bring our meals to each rooms and we got 3 meals per day which were full nutrients from volunteers brought us directly, sometimes they also gave us some fruits, yogurt and milk. There were about 4-6 people per room and 10 floors on a building, so we can imagine that they were so hard to carry on our meals. They also took note the special orders for each person who keeps a vegetarian diet or someone is allergic to any foods.
In the morning, we woke up at 6.00 am, and two nurses who wore a protective gear with face mask coming and checking our temperature. We’re checked the temperature twice per day, morning and afternoon. They were friendly to guideline us taking care of our heath.
While we had enough meals, necessary things, beds, almost volunteers (including soldiers, nurses, doctors) haven’t foods with enough nutrients, they must eat instant noodles frequently, and they have not bed to take a rest. They are so hard with other people.
On the 10th and 14th day, we must be got the Corona virus test. There is amazing when our scientists can research and produce the Covid kit test for using the entire of people in our country also export to others
They took mucus in nose and throat by the tester, after 2 days, they did feedback us the results.
Finally I busted out my feeling when I got the negative result of Covid test.
It was lucky, my roommates also got the same results to me, so we allowed to come home.
Closing a long trip, I was in Hanoi, and continued to self – isolated more 14 days, simultaneously our country was social distancing period. I still missed my feeling in isolated place where I got 3 meals, milk, fruits daily and checked the temperature twice a day (but I didn’t know their faces). And also I missed my roommates in which we has a older woman cleaned our room daily. Additionally, I did exercises twice per day (on morning and afternoon) with a younger roommate. Sometimes, a few young soldiers asked us about our health, our life and they encouraged us to try staying there only 14 days while they must be there more than 3 months. Especially, the happiest thing was we got the testing result of myself and roommates which were negative.
Everybody used “must be quarantined”, but I said “got into quarantine place”, cause either people had the same to these feelings and adventures or experiences.
Once more, I would like to thank our Goverment, I hoped all of people can STAY THE HOME to win this Covid fighting.
Donna Nguyen 