AmCham Vietnam wants to provide a safe environment for events and business networking. We recognized that there was always a risk of a second outbreak, and it looks like we are experiencing it now. We also know that we all have different comfort levels with respect to the changing situation. 

In response, AmCham has a rating system for all of our events, explained in the link below. https://www.amchamvietnam.com/amcham-event-level-rating/ We hope the rating system is useful to you in making your own decisions about which events in which you would like to participate. As always, we welcome your feedback at team@amchamvietnam.com.

We encourage U.S. citizens to check the Embassy’s COVID-19 page daily for information, and register or update their information in the Department of State’s Smart Traveler Enrollment Program (STEP). The AmCham website has links to this page, as well as many other reliable sources of COVID-19 information.

Some additional tips below from Dr. Mason Cobb, Vice-Chair, and Dr. Andy Meadows, of AmCham Healthcare Vietnam has nearly won another battle with COVID-19 again, with no community-spread cases or deaths in several days. With this positive news in hand, the government released a preliminary plan for the resumption of international flights from selected countries on September 15th.  Additionally, the government reported that certain business travelers may avoid quarantine if their stay in Vietnam would be less than 14 days. The details of this exception are still being clarified. Nonetheless, after such dedicated compliance by the people in Vietnam, these announcements bring hope of more cautious steps towards normalizing our lives.

This week brought several advances in treatment or prevention.  An expanded list of steroids, perhaps given earlier in the course of the disease, seems to mitigate severe illness or death.  The recommendation is to give steroids more liberally and earlier than previously recommended.

The antiviral drug Remdesivir had been shown to be effective therapy for the most severely ill COVID-19 patients. Now the U.S. FDA has expanded the authorization for use of Remdesivir to include all hospitalized COVID-19 patients. Remdesivir with Dexamethasone (the first approved steroid) forms the emerging standard of care for all hospitalized COVID-19 patients, along with general supportive care. 

Convalescent plasma has been approved in the United States for emergency use, but strong supportive data for its efficacy is still lacking. There is such compulsion to finding the cure that many medicines have been tried without solid scientific backing.  Hydroxychloroquine, an earlier hope, now has been shown in a meta-analysis to produce a higher mortality than by not using it. Ivermectin, a common antiparasitic, has been shown effective in the lab, but not yet in humans.  

On a more positive note regarding prevention, Vitamin D has been shown in two preliminary studies to ameliorate the disease.  Large doses given in one study seemed to prevent ICU admissions and possibly death.  Another study suggested that Vitamin D deficiency is associated with a 77% greater risk of contracting COVID-19. 

NOTE: about 2/3 of Vietnamese are Vitamin D deficient, as well as about 40% of other nationalities. Vitamin D deficiency is more common in the obese, diabetics, older individuals, and chronically ill patients: these are also high-risk groups for bad COVOD-19 outcomes.  A standard Vitamin D dose is 1000-2000 IU, with some recommending up to 4000 IU daily.

The frantic quest for the vaccine has been on the front-burner. The Russian vaccine, already being released ahead of Phase 3 trials, does produce antibodies.  However, how protective they are or the safety of the vaccine are not known, yet.  There are 4 candidate vaccines in the West undergoing Phase 3 trials.  Politicians would like a vaccine before November, but most scientists are more cautious, holding that safety data will take more time to thoroughly analyze; sometime in H1 2021 is most likely.  This is still break-neck speed for vaccine development which normally takes four years to develop and thoroughly test.

Recent weeks and months have seen the vaccine race become more openly political and combative, with claims of hacking, cutting safety corners within the usual clinical trial process, and rising nationalistic vaccine protectionism. It is an increasingly competitive undertaking, with the high stakes of human health, vaccine costs, and reopening economies all in play.

Until a vaccine with demonstrated safety and efficacy can be distributed, community spread can be effectively mitigated through responsible behaviors. As White House Coronavirus Coordinator Dr .Deborah Birx said, “I’m hopeful for a vaccine, but I’m also very convinced right now that we can stop community spread by wearing masks, socially distancing and avoiding crowds.”  In Vietnam, as another potentially nation-wide epidemic has been averted, how long will people keep their guard up, and how long will the government require strong protective measures?  And how much caution will be required as we carefully open our borders?