I lived through the coronavirus panic in Vietnam. Here’s what Sacramento should know

Dear Sacramento: Greetings from coronavirus future.

Being in Vietnam, I am 14 hours ahead of you. I have also had months of experience living through this viral epidemic before it finally spread to the 916 area code.

People in Vietnam first met news of the COVID-19 virus with some curiosity in January. Then, a handful of patients tested positive for the disease. This was followed by the panicked stockpiling of food and hand sanitizer gel, school closures and reduced business.

After the patients recovered for the most part – and no one died – people cautiously returned to work, restaurants and events. Of course, they still take care to wash their hands thoroughly. More thoroughly, perhaps, than before the coronavirus.

Sacramentans will reach this stage, too. You will eventually get back to living your lives, mindful of smart precautions but no longer on edge.

In the meantime, the virus is putting us all to the test. It’s a test of whether we have set up robust systems to cope with a public health crisis. It tests our ability to filter false news, assess risk, behave rationally and exemplify prudence without falling prey to prejudice.

Soon after the coronavirus outbreak in China in December, the epidemic was seen as an Asian problem. I watched it unfold in Vietnam, where people started to work from home and one event after another was canceled. Even the pollution cleared as fewer people went outside.

At first, these were just details to share when I Skyped with family and friends back in Sacramento (who would urge me not to eat out or interact with too many people).

But then the virus jumped the Pacific. Every day, it’s becoming more of a California problem, too. This is turning into a shared experience. The face mask shortage is hitting hospitals in Roseville just as it did pharmacies in Bangkok. When friends text me photos of empty shelves or customers hoarding goods, sometimes the photos come from a convenience store in Japan. Other times, they come from a Costco in Rancho Cordova.

While the virus spreads around the United States, so does a kind of racialized fear. Hmong men rejected from a hotel in Indiana were told “anyone from China” has to be quarantined for two weeks. People ask if it is safe to eat Chinese food, avoiding Sacramento eateries like Tealicious and Hong Kong Islander. Those “sniffling while Asian” have become suspect.

Some display an eagerness to lay blame on China. A Fox News host linked coronavirus to Chinese people eating raw bats, saying, “The Chinese communist government cannot feed the people, and they are desperate.”

It’s true that the virus began in China. It’s also true that the U.S. has struggled to test fewer than 2,000 people for the virus, while other countries test hundreds of thousands; that it reduced funding for the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other health programs; and that U.S. coronavirus officials were untrained and unprotected.

This is on top of shortcomings in other developed countries, from Japan admitting travelers from an infected cruise ship without screenings to lack of information sharing among unprepared European countries.

I wouldn’t dare suggest a false equivalence in the mistakes made by each country. Chinese citizens who helped to expose the crisis have gone missing. But missteps even in the world’s richest country should humble us enough to avoid casting aspersions elsewhere.

This experience has me thinking back to “Blindness,” a novel by Portuguese Nobel Laureate José Saramago. In the book, an inexplicable epidemic renders whole communities blind. Soon, the afflicted are rounded up, towns descend into filth, food is rationed and we discover which characters would rob the blind, and which would help strangers to bathe.

If epidemics are a test, it’s because they expose our weaknesses. But they make us reflect, too. COVID-19 reminds us that the world is far more integrated today than in 2002, when SARS first struck and when South Sacramento was as close as most of us got to Asia.

The virus has more people reflecting on and debating health care policy, paid sick leave, the need for collective action and even telecommuting – which, by the way, could help solve commuting problems in Sacramento, where the average commute rose to 27.6 minutes in 2017.

The virus, now officially a pandemic according to the World Health Organization, also has spawned a golden age of handwashing and Public Service Announcements. One such video PSA from Vietnam has gone viral. “Last Week Tonight” host John Oliver says the video’s catchy tune “absolutely slaps.” It’s worth watching his coronavirus episode to the end to see Oliver do the “corona dance” that goes with it.

So, enjoy the video, have a laugh and wash your hands. To that I would add the Bee Editorial Board’s advice: Stay calm, listen to experts and eat some Chinese food.

This story was originally published March 12, 2020 at 5:00 AM.