There was a story a while ago that briefly sparked some anti-foreigner behavior in pockets of Vietnam about a group of people from the U.K. who were confirmed Corvid-19 carriers that escaped quarantine in order to carry on. They were eventually caught up with, and all the communities that they were associated with had to be shut down and sanitized and contained, so to speak.
Does this sound scary? Well, it depends on how you look at it. When these areas were shut down by the government they tried a different approach: Compassion. And it works
That first image seems a bit scary, but when these areas were identified, entire blocks were shut down and the people were not allowed in or out.
This aspect of it would make anyone feel a little afraid but it is what they did after that put everyone at ease and in my mind this is how these situations need to be handled. Instead of just passing down an order that everyone has to stay in their homes, the government officials came by and made it much easier for these communities to be willing to do so.
They delivered food and supplies for all the households in the areas. For many of the occupants this was actually much higher quality, and certainly a much higher quantity than they are used to having on a regular day.
Meats, eggs, fresh vegetables, rice, noodles, water, and even BOOZE like beer and whiskey was delivered en masse and given to the populations in these areas free of charge.
The citizenry was given this compassion FIRST, then the medical screening and appropriate care and separation was applied.
This makes so much more sense to me than passing down decrees that are applied to a perhaps unwilling population under threat of force or imprisonment. It is much easier to contain a population that has a full belly and plenty of supplies, doncha think?
In my mind it certainly makes me far less afraid of any sort of quarantine that might come to my area in the not-too-distant future... but I wonder what kind of cheeses they are going to provide (just kidding of course.)
The fact of the matter is that these people, who are not allowed to leave their neighborhoods and there are guards enforcing this, don't actually feel compelled to leave because they are being provided more than enough to get through this. Of course the outbreak is considerably smaller here in Vietnam but is it not at least plausible that the reason why it is contained is because the officials are handling the situation with a high degree of compassion?
I thought this was an awesome story about how these sorts of things should be handled. A government can scare their population into compliance to a certain degree, but I think that kindness is actually a much better method... don't you?