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Come on, Viet Commies! Did you really have to order VnExpress to retract one of yesterday’s articles? Is the truth really that damning? Are you losing control of your own propaganda machine?

I think that I’ve already established some of my feelings concerning some of the failures of your family’s government with its handling of COVID-19. I won’t continue to beat the same drum other than re-iterating that the Communist Party of Vietnam fucked up. It’s the single point of failure and, further, the country would have been better off had the South taken over, similar to South Korea. Nonetheless, yesterday, I found it disappointing that VnExpress retracted a fact-based article on the status of COVID-19 vaccinations in Bình Dương, practically a city that’s part of Ho Chi Minh City, called, “Binh Duong runs out of Covid vaccines, petitions health ministry for more”.

Had the article survived, I wouldn’t have thought much of it. Really. It’s not surprising (to me) that Bình Dương had ran out of COVID-19 vaccinations because Vietnam is relying on free handouts and has to allocate an already limited supply. Vietnam’s leadership, the Communist Party of Vietnam, failed to make the one proactive decision that likely would have saved the country from the worst (of five), still on-going COVID-19 outbreak — procured an adequate supply of COVID-19 vaccinations during the development stage. It didn’t even have to look far for direction. Japan, South Korea and Singapore had set examples.

You might think I jumped to a conclusion when the article uncharacteristically disappeared. But knowing that much of what the Communist Party of Vietnam says is full of big talk or half-truths, the importance of maintaining face and that at least one district, District 7, formally stopped providing the vaccination to expats (in favor of Vietnamese) due to supply issues, I’d bet the article was deleted on purpose.

Regarding District 7, I couldn’t believe its party leaders had drafted a letter to notify the public of the decision to stop vaccinating expats. The letter in itself is a first world gesture, almost. Despite the Communist Party of Vietnam’s public commitment to vaccinate everyone regardless of nationality, party leaders from other districts have been rejecting expats outright from the get-go because, well, they are expats. I find that a bit ironic because Vietnam received the COVID-19 vaccinations from foreign countries.

A record of the article can still be found on Google, as of August 9, 2021. To find it, you can use the search term, “binh duong runs out of vaccines”. Google wasn’t able to cache the article in time, unfortunately. It was deleted about six hours after being published around 11AM.

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