Non stop flights

The Vietnam National Hospital for Tropical Diseases has stopped receiving new in-patients since May 5 to conduct Covid-19 tests for all staff members after a doctor tested positive for Covid-19.

National Hospital for Tropical Diseases stops receiving in-patients

Both the branches in Dong Anh District and on Giai Phong Street have stopped receiving new in-patients. All staff, interns, patients and family members at the hospital would be tested for SARS-CoV-2. The hospital will give guidance to out-patients. Staff, interns, patients and family members will be quarantined at the hospital from May 5 until further notice. Measures will be applied to prevent cross-infection inside the hospital.

The hospital will speed up the vaccination process for all of the staff and issue notice to patients who have been at the hospital for the past 15 days.

On May 4, a doctor at the hospital tested positive for Covid-19. He had travelled to many districts including Dong Anh, Ba Dinh, Dong Da, Tay Ho and Hoang Mai. Hanoi authorities have extended testing for suspected people in these districts.

“He lives on Kim Ma Street, Ba Dinh District and went to a karaoke bar on Lang Street, Dong Da District on April 28. Localities authorities must be on alert and start the contact tracing process,” said Tran Thi Ha, director of Hanoi Department of Health.

The house of the doctor was disinfected and the residential area with 26 households and 72 people is on lockdown. The authorities have traced 11 people who were in contact with the doctor.

The authorities also put Apartment Building B6 on Giang Vo Street on lockdown after the doctor visited his uncle there.

Deputy Minister of Health Do Xuan Tuyen announced that 400 samples had been taken from 800 staff, patients and family members at the hospital so far. The initial results showed that 14 people had tested positive for Covid-19 including two doctors, eight patients and four family members. Even though they are still considered suspected cases, the National Hospital for Tropical Diseases was asked to tighten monitoring and consider the rest of the people staying at the hospital as F1 patients.

By Ha Vy

By Huong Anh

On May 3, billionaires Bill and Melinda Gates, co-founders of one of the world’s largest private charitable foundations, filed for divorce after 27 years, but pledged to continue their philanthropic work together.

In a joint petition for dissolution of marriage, the couple asserted their legal union was “irretrievably broken,” but said they had reached an agreement on how to divide their marital assets.

While the socioeconomic ramifications of the divorce have become talk of the town in many places, many Vietnamese tongues are wagging about something else that is closer to home.

They are debating the merits and demerits of a man doing the dishes.

The debate has been sparked by Gates’s professed love for dish washing, with several Vietnamese male netizens “taking the cue” and quipping that sharing housework does not seem to save a marriage.

“I do the dishes every night – other people volunteer but I like the way I do it,” Bill Gates had said during a Reddit AMA in 2014.

Nguyen Thanh Dat, a white collar worker in Hanoi, commented on his Facebook page, said: “A man enjoying washing dishes for his wife and still ends up divorcing… it seems doing dishes does not help a marriage last.”

Many other men agreed, joking they would not do the dishes hereafter because “even a rich man like Bill Gates cannot save his marriage by washing dishes.”

Microsoft technology advisor Bill Gates and his wife Melinda leave on the second day of the Allen and Co. media conference in Sun Valley, Idaho July 10, 2014. Photo by Reuters/Rick Wilking.

Many netizens would not be diverted by the humor.

“People should stop making jokes that men who do chores at home will not have a happy marriage. Such ridiculous assumptions make it harder to fight gender stereotypes,” said An Nguyen, a teacher in Hanoi.

Some people commented that man doing housework was nothing to talk about, but sociologist Trinh Hoa Binh said that Bill Gates washing dishes had caught public attention because it is uncommon for a man to do house chores in Vietnam.

While there has been heightened awareness of gender equality in Vietnam for several years, the majority of women still get no housework help from men.

It is still the norm that Vietnamese husbands refuse to assist their wives with household chores.

In 2018, a survey by the Institute of Labor Science and Social Affairs and the United Nations University World Institute for Development Economics Research revealed just three percent of respondent husbands washed dishes at home, and only 0.5 percent offered to do it regularly.

Notably, 20 percent said they’d never washed dishes, which, they consider a woman’s job.

A report by the Ministry of Labor, Invalids, and Social Affairs and ActionAid in 2016 showed Vietnamese women spend an average five hours a day on unpaid work like household chores and childcare, compared to three hours for men.

The report said that in some disadvantaged areas, women spend over eight hours a day on unpaid employment.

Even amid the Covid-19 pandemic, 20 percent of Vietnamese men have not done any housework even as the women carry the double burden of work and family responsibilities, according to a March report by the International Labor Organization (ILO).

“My husband is like a kid and cannot cook a proper meal for himself. I keep telling him that we must share these responsibilities equally,” said Nguyen Huong Quynh, a banker in Hanoi.

It is still a widely prevalent practice that Vietnamese women do most of the housework, while fixing and maintaining equipment in the house are tasks reserved for men, according to a study done by the Institute for Social Development Studies.

“Traditional gender norms are clearly reflected in the way many people think – that a man like Bill Gates can easily free himself from doing house chores,” said sociologist Binh.

A tired woman cleans her kitchen. Photo by Shutterstock/Makistock.

Traditional gender norms

The notion of “men building the house and women making it a home,” is deeply rooted in many Asian cultures including Vietnam.

In this patriarchal paradigm that is reinforced by Confucian traditions in Vietnam, cooking, washing clothes, doing the dishes, and taking care of children are a woman’s job.

It is commonly said that if women fail to manage their family affairs and housework, they are nothing, regardless of how successful they may be in their careers and society.

“Many people think women must strike a balance between her job and house chores, but the truth is they go to work and earn money just like their male counterparts,” sociologist Binh said.

Though younger, educated men in urban areas are more open-minded, most Vietnamese men still hold on stereotypical beliefs that associate them with strength and external and more important affairs, and women with gentleness and the “inferior” yet strenuous jobs, several international studies have pointed out.

The ILO has noted that while the country is taking steps to tackle gender inequality, the situation remains dire in Vietnam as the majority of women stay trapped by the “invisible” area informal, unpaid employment.

Binh said: “If a man doing housework becomes a common thing here, people would not talk about Bill Gates’s liking for dish washing, but that will not happen in the near future.”

Chu Xuan Dung, deputy chairman of the municipal People’s Committee, said Tuesday residents should refrain from gathering in public spaces, and keep maintaining a distance of at least a meter from each other.

He said they should not exercise or play sports as a group in parks, gardens and other public spaces.

Any celebrations and other gatherings must strictly follow all coronavirus prevention measures, including the submitting of medical declarations and wearing masks, he added.

Dung’s announcement was made as part of the capital city’s response to the nationwide Covid-19 outbreak since last week that has so far seen 38 community transmissions recorded in seven localities: Ha Nam, Vinh Phuc, Hanoi, Hung Yen, Da Nang, Yen Bai and HCMC.

Hanoi so far has recorded four community cases and locked down several locations including the National Hospital for Tropical Diseases, its frontline hospital in the Covid-19 fight. The capital city has also suspended many non-essential services including theaters, massage parlors, gyms and outdoor food vendors and cafes.

The city currently has over 2,400 people under centralized quarantine.