Long weekend becomes 9 week lockdown for AP Vietnam reporter - Yahoo News

Vietnam’s pandemic lockdown has been so long I’ve lost my sense of time.

This is the ninth I’ve been stuck in Vung Tau, a seaside resort more than 1,500 kilometers (900 miles) from my home in Hanoi.

I got to Vung Tau for a long weekend to see my partner in mid-July.

Until then, Vietnam had reported just over 8,000 cases and 35 virus deaths and won global praise for its pandemic success.

The strain spread like wildfire through factories in industrial zones, into markets and on to communities across the country.

In Ho Chi Minh City, the country’s largest with 10 million people, authorities ordered a city-wide lockdown.

Soon it was expanded to include the entire southern region, home to more than a third of the country's 98 million people.

I was stranded in Vung Tau as the city announced its first ever COVID-19 case.

It seemed like a chance to slow down and enjoy time with my partner.

More than half of Vietnam's people are currently under lockdown.

The government tightened restrictions further this month, telling people to “stay put wherever you are” to buy time to vaccinate more people.

Over the weekend, more than 1 million shots were given in Hanoi alone and authorities were aiming to have 100% of eligible residents with at least one shot by week’s end.

Vung Tau extended its lockdown for the sixth time over the weekend, adding another two weeks.

The lockdown day is long and the longer it goes on, the more it drags.

From my balcony, every time I feel frustrated, I comfort myself by thinking how lucky and privileged I am for not having to spend the lockdown in far less comfortable conditions like millions of my countrymen cooped up in small non-air conditioned apartments in the summer heat.

I binge Netflix with my partner, with whom I’ve never been together for such a long time over the past seven years.

I spend more time learning my partner’s native French.

Before this wave, I felt like the pandemic was somewhere else.

With the lockdown extended over and over again, it’s hard to envisage when it might end.