Dreaming the future – VietNam Breaking News

Vaccine passports – the future?, illustration photo, source: internet

At the end of December, thousands of Europeans received the first doses of the Pfizer-BioNtech COVID-19 vaccine after the company received authorisation in the EU. Since then, other countries such as the US, Israel, the UAE, Bahrain, India, and several Asian countries, including Vietnam, have also started to receive or order vaccines to prepare for mass vaccination programmes.

This has awakened optimism about an end to the pandemic and the idea of a vaccine passport.

A heated discussion

Some parts of the world, such as the Seychelles, Cyprus, and Romania, have begun to remove quarantine requirements for visitors who have been vaccinated. In early January, Denmark also announced that it would issue vaccine passports to citizens within the next three to four months.

To get digital vaccine passports, Danish citizens will have to declare their medical and vaccination status on a government-issued app. Owners of such passports will be able to return to Denmark without quarantine and receive access to bars, restaurants, and hotels.

Iceland became the first European nation to issue vaccine certificates in late January. While Greece also announced it will unveil a digital vaccination certificate for those who have received two doses of the vaccine, Israel recently announced that a so-called Green Badge will allow vaccinated people to go to restaurants, attend public events, and travel freely. Other countries that are currently issuing or waiting for vaccine passports include the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Spain, and Sweden.

Despite being supported by several countries and seen as a necessary condition for freedom of movement, vaccine passports have received mixed reactions in many places. The UK, the first in the world to vaccinate people against COVID-19, had previously denied plans for vaccine passports to allow people to travel abroad, but they can ask for proof of vaccination in case they need to travel.

One of the reasons not to issue a vaccine passport is that COVID-19 vaccination is not compulsory in the UK, said MP Nadhim Zahawi. The EU is also divided over vaccine passports. Some, such as France, Germany, Belgium, and the Netherlands, as well as organisations like the World Health Organization and the European Commission, also argued that vaccine passports do not ensure safe travel.

In France, Health Minister Olivier Véran has repeatedly said it is too early to discuss vaccination passports since fewer than 2.5 million French people have received the first dose and because it is unclear whether the vaccine prevents transmission.

Meanwhile, Germany also advised not to loosen many of the restrictions. To date, the 27 EU member states have only agreed on mutual recognition of COVID-19 test results. The introduction of vaccine passports remains a story of the future, especially as more new coronavirus variants are discovered. The European Commission says it will not be rushed into a decision on passports while only 3 per cent of Europeans have been vaccinated.

The US also expressed caution with vaccine passports as President Biden asked government agencies to evaluate the feasibility of linking coronavirus vaccine certificates with other vaccination documents and producing digital versions of them.

Possible resurrection?

Although controversies abound, governments and technology firms around the world are leaning towards using vaccine passports to recover the economy and revive the tourism and entertainment industries.

Some companies and tech groups like IBM have also started to develop smartphone applications where users can upload detailed information about their tests and vaccinations to create a digital health certificate or use QR codes to display their vaccination status to the authorities without disclosing sensitive information.

Zurab Pololikashvili, secretary general of the UN’s World Tourism Organization, has called on the world to apply vaccine passports on a larger scale as an indispensable element for the tourism industry’s recovery.

“One key element vital for the restart of tourism is consistency and harmonisation of rules and protocols regarding international travel,” he said in an email. “Evidence of vaccination, for example, through the coordinated introduction of what may be called ‘health passports’ can offer this. They can also eliminate the need for quarantine on arrival, a policy which is also standing in the way of the return of international tourism.”

The International Air Transport Association (IATA) supports vaccine passports and also piloted their digital application called IATA Travel Pass piloted on Singapore Airlines flights late last year. IATA said it could expand the programme to other destinations if the pilot is successful.

Singapore Airlines also plans to incorporate health certifications into a mobile app in mid-2021. Passengers who have tested for COVID-19 at clinics designated by the airline will be issued an electronic certificate with a QR code or a paper health certificate.

Some airlines, like Qantas, said they would make vaccine documentation mandatory on all flights while Gulf Air, Emirates, and Etihad will test a travel pass designed by the IATA.

In Vietnam, the first batch of vaccines was imported a few days ago as the first happy signal for reopening. Once the country is truly safe from the pandemic, ministries and departments will study to issue a passport similar to the vaccine passports.

However, tourism expert Truong Nam Thang, a member of tourism research projects of the Tourism Advisory Board and the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism, said that by December, the nation will temporarily achieve herd immunity in key economic and tourism cities. By June 2022, Vietnam hopes to reach herd immunity across the country.

Thus, it will not be until the end of the second quarter of 2022 that Vietnam can normalise international trade as well as gradually restore tourism and international travel.

By Thai Anh

When his roommates turn the lights off to go to bed at 10 p.m., Hoang Minh is just starting his eight-hour shift at work.

Sitting with a laptop on his bunk bed, the 21-year-old enters information about overseas orders his company has received into the system.

“This job just needs hands and eyes,” he says.

Because of the Covid-19 outbreak, Minh was allowed to work from his room in Hanoi’s Cau Giay District.

But within two days the company required him to return to office since his output had been lower than normal.

His salary has remained at VND6 million ($260) a month since he began working here since 2019.

Hoang Minh doing data entry on his bunk bed in a boarding room in Hanois Cau Giay District. Photo courtesy of Minh.

Hoang Minh doing his data entry work in his room in Hanoi’s Cau Giay District. Photo courtesy of Minh.

After dropping out of college, the young man from central Vietnam had been dreaming of working in the technology field, a job he perceived as “computer-related.”

But instead he ended up with a data entry job.

After two months of working through the night and going home to sleep in the morning, he quit just after the 2020 Lunar New Year ( Tet ) just as Covid-19 first appeared in Vietnam.

He began to apply for all sorts of jobs.

However, the pandemic was causing a huge number of layoffs. According to the General Statistics Office, the employment rate in the first quarter of 2020 was the lowest in 10 years.

Minh got a job as a bank credit officer, who had to persuade individuals and businesses to borrow. But there was no salary and instead employees got paid based on performance. This time he quit after just one month.

He then worked as a real estate agent and quit again when he could not find a single client in three months.

During that time he had to borrow money just to eat.

Around this time a former colleague and friend also wanted to quit his data entry job, and Minh texted him saying: “Don’t be foolish to quit your job at this critical time. I really regret my action now.”

Luckily for him, his old company again recruited people for data entry, and Minh immediately applied and got it.

“I have not paid off my debts yet,” he says.

Minh opted to stay and work through Tet this year. He took a few minutes off on Lunar New Year’s Eve, a time when the whole country celebrates, and sat with his roommates to eat instant noodles.

“The noodles tasted bitter.”

His parents have urged him to return home and learn vocational skills or become a blue-collar worker, but Minh wants to decide “his own fate.”

Feeling depressed on the second day of the new year, he called his father to say he would go visit home for two days. But his boss warned him saying if he failed to fulfill his contract the company would not accept him back when he returned.

Being unemployed for four months in 2020 had taught Minh to be patient, and he decided to stay.

“As a 21-year-old, I don’t have time to date or hang out with friends since everyone goes to school or work during the day.”

But he does not dare quit his current job, knowing that Covid-19 has put paid to employment opportunities.

A woman filling for unemployment benefits at the Hanoi Center for Employee Service in Cau Giay District. Photo by VnExpress/Ngoc Thanh.

But people can be dissatisfied with their current jobs but dare not quit amid a global pandemic or not.

Pham Manh Ha, an associate professor of psychology at the Vietnam National University in Hanoi, said this is most common in the 30-45 age group.

“These people are frustrated with their current jobs, have no opportunities for advancement, are not interested in a career, and have difficulty finding new jobs. They fall into a state of internal frustration and constant stress, resulting in poor performance and unexpected outcomes.”

Minh Huong, 32, of Saigon’s District 1 identifies herself as one such person. For several months now she has been crying every day on the 5km trip from her rented room to office.

The admissions officer at an English language center says: “I am shy and have an inferiority complex. I dare not speak up when I have a grievance. I do not dare express myself, and so I am locked in a vicious circle.”

Huong was an excellent employee in 2019, but got a Tet bonus of just VND500,000 ($21.68), just like her roommate. Since reward was based on collective performance, just one team member performing poorly could affect everyone’s year-end bonus.

Her labor contract said, unless she violated rules, she was entitled to a salary increase every six months. But it took her a year to get a raise of just VND450,000 ($19.52).

Feeling unhappy, she resigned.

“But since our center lacked manpower and there was no one to fill my position, my boss asked me to stay for another two months. And then the pandemic broke out.”

She continued to work there because she had applied to five language centers but either received no response or canceled her scheduled interview due to the outbreak.

The fact she had resigned but decided stay on because of the pandemic did not endear her to her boss or colleagues.

“I emailed my boss to suggest adding a few designs in the classroom to attract students. But my boss dismissed it saying it would be approved if a teacher suggested it. But the next day a colleague in the room suggested it again and got approval.”

The office has more than 10 employees who eat lunch together, but no one wants to sit next to her. Her boss only gives her minor work.

Huong is terribly depressed, and does not know how she can carry on much longer.

“I plan to find a new job around mid-June; I hope the outbreak will be completely under control by then.”

Vu Quang Thanh, deputy director of the Hanoi Center for Employee Service, said there are more job opportunities now than in the early part of last year, with enterprises’ demand for workers increasing by around 5 percent.

At his center, 207 enterprises in the telephone components, machinery, textile and other sectors have registered to recruit more than 5,000 workers.

But he said people who want to find new jobs should assess their capabilities, recruitment demand in their field, salary, and other factors.

The pandemic has made it difficult for many businesses and so salaries are down, he said.

So, instead of worrying about their income, people should try to stay back and share the difficulty with their employers instead of jumping to other jobs, he said.

Besides, people need to accurately assess the cause of their current situation. If the problems are caused by technology changes or a mismatch between their abilities and job requirements, they need to improve their personal skills, he added.