Social distancing

Huyen Kim, who works for a company that cleans office buildings in HCMC, is in dire need for a job.

She was furloughed by the company in late May as the fourth Covid-19 wave began to spread, and told she would be taken back in July if the outbreak is better controlled. But she is worried sick since this is the worst Covid situation Vietnam has faced so far.

“I asked my nephew to help me find a housemaid or babysitter job online, but have had no luck so far,” the 43-year-old woman said.

“I am waiting for the day I can start working again. All I can do now is wait for the outbreak to die down.”

She used to earn around VND8 million ($345) a month cleaning five offices every day in the city’s downtown.

Kim is by no means the only domestic helper to be severely hit by the new wave, which has stripped many of their livelihoods.

A study published Tuesday by the International Labor Organization (ILO) said cleaners and helpers have suffered job losses at nearly three times the rate as other workers. It said in the second quarter of 2020 they suffered a 17 percent jobless rate compared to 6.1 percent for other workers like drivers, cooks, security guards, and others.

For people from rural areas, getting stuck in metropolises amid the pandemic is a luxury they cannot afford, especially when many neighborhoods in Hanoi and HCMC have been placed under lockdown.

Pham Thu Hang, 40, who works in Hanoi’s Long Bien District, moved back to her hometown in the northern Phu Tho Province in late May to work as a farmer when the capital saw Covid resurge.

“I need to save money to support my children in Phu Tho, so the idea of getting stuck in Hanoi for months scared me,” she said.

She is reconciled to alternating between the two places after having faced such upheavals before. In January too she had to move back to Phu Tho soon after the third wave began, and only returned to Hanoi to work in March after it died down.

“I’m now used to the fact that my job is unstable. The only thing that saddens me is that I can put less food on the table for my children.”

She used to earn a monthly income of around VND7 million ($302) in Hanoi. She admitted she is afraid of getting infected and so “fleeing to her hometown is the best bet.”

With the outbreak continuing to rage, HCMC authorities extended social distancing by two more weeks after imposing the first one on May 31.

Since the fourth wave began on April 28 the southern city has become the third hardest hit locality with 1,346 cases as of Friday evening. Hanoi was in fourth place with 464.

Some families have taken extra precautions and decided to stop hiring cleaners after the number of daily cases continues to rise.

Following the Ministry of Health’s preventive guidelines, Phi Thi Thu Thao has stopped hiring helpers from a service company after HCMC mandated social distancing.

“Since the company my husband and I work for allows us to work from home, we have been taking turns caring for our two-year-old son and doing household chores,” the 33-year-old accountant said.

In the same report the ILO said the working hours of cleaners and helpers fell by 24.7 percent from the fourth quarter of 2019. As a result, wages plummeted by 26.2 percent.

Some commercial cleaning services are struggling to survive.

Nguyen Truong Son, a marketing staff for Giupviec.vn, a home and office cleaning services company with offices in Hanoi and HCMC, said revenues had fallen by 50-60 percent since the Lunar New Year [in mid-February].

Besides, the demand for office cleaning services had also declined since people have started working from home.

“The company offers disinfection services along with cleaning at a cheap price to attract and retain customers. But the promotion is not effective since not many people want a combination of those services,” he said.

Cleaners like Kim are desperate to go back to work and make a living.

“I just hope the outbreak will be under control soon so that things can go back to the pre-pandemic era,” she said wistfully.

Health authorities recorded almost 150 locally-transmitted coronavirus infections in Ho Chi Minh City on Friday, as Vietnam has been struggling with the fourth transmission wave – and the worst so far – since late April.

One hundred and forty-nine cases were detected in the community, the municipal Center for Disease Control (HCDC) said in a report.

This is the biggest-ever daily case increase the city has reported since the virus first emerged in the country early last year.

The patients were related to about 20 transmission chains, with a dozen cases showing no clear source of infection.

The southern economic hub has found 1,346 community cases since April 27, when the fourth virus wave broke out in Vietnam.

The pathogen is silently spreading in the community so everyone should adhere to social distancing rules, reinstated on May 31, and limit unnecessary interactions, the HCDC said.

Those finding that they are at risk of infection should immediately contact local medical providers for help, it added.

The Ministry of Health documented 259 local COVID-19 cases nationwide on Friday, including 149 in Ho Chi Minh City, 76 in Bac Giang Province, 16 in Bac Ninh Province, 12 in Binh Duong Province, three in Ha Tinh Province, two in Hoa Binh Province, and one in Lao Cai Province.

A total of 232 cases were logged in quarantined or isolated areas, the ministry noted, adding 80 recoveries were recorded the same day.

Vietnam has registered 9,173 domestic infections in this wave, 1,840 of which has been found since Monday.

Bac Giang is leading with 5,083 patients, followed by Bac Ninh with 1,470 and Ho Chi Minh City.

By comparison, Vietnam confirmed 106 community cases in the first wave from January 23 to April 16, 2020, 554 in the second from July 25 to December 1, 2020, and 910 in the third from January 28 to March 25, 2021.

The Southeast Asian nation has reported an aggregate of 12,414 patients, including 10,742 local and 1,672 imported cases.

The number of recovered patients stands at 4,733 while 62 have died, most having suffered critical underlying conditions.

Nearly two million AstraZeneca vaccine shots had been administered and almost 90,000 people had been fully inoculated by Thursday, according to the health ministry’s data.

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