Foreigners in Vietnam

It looks like all over the world, countries are shutting borders and restricting travel by foreigners. The US is the prime example, with President Trump blocking travel by people that have been in European countries in the past two weeks.

Source: Kate Taylor, Business Insider

In Vietnam, we have seen this since the beginning of the spread of COVID-19. It is interesting to see how it has moved from Chinese to now Europeans. Here is a story about the sign on a bar that says it won’t serve Chinese - that was back in late February.

Now those with the virus are Europeans coming in to the country, spreading the disease all over. And the Vietnamese are starting to be unhappy with them too! In that vein, I wanted to highlight these two stories.

First, here’s this story about foreign tourists not wearing face masks! It’s a bit schizophrenic: it goes from shaming these tourists to praising them for visiting historical sites.

Second, the HCMC government is “hunting” this man. Not great imagery. Looks like this movie. Anyway, it looks like they talked to him on his mobile, but he wouldn’t tell them where he was. I guess he didn’t want to be quarantined. Sounds like an a$$ to me.

Entry into the country by Europeans is being restricted, with Brits and other European nationals not allowed in visa-free. I assume visitors from the US will be next. Australia has more than a hundred cases, so that could be another

I really don’t think the economic impact is the most important, but this is an economics and finance blog. The economic situation appears increasingly negative everywhere. While China seems to have gotten a handle on it, it still will suffer if others aren’t buying and logistics are slowed.

The financial markets globally are down again today, and I don’t know when the decline will stop. Looking at China, it took about 3 months or so for the virus to die down. But that took massive restrictions in movement. The US had its first case in January 20, but it wasn’t until late February or early March before it really started spreading. Similarly for the UK and some other European countries. So by the end of May, maybe all of this will be over! That might be optimistic!

Until then, there is going to be massive volatility in the markets. That’s about all I can say with certainty.