HCMC – A global survey jointly conducted by Singapore’s leading social research agency Blackbox Research and Toluna showed that the Vietnamese are satisfied with their country’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic, bringing the country in at second place among 23 countries after China.
Blackbox Index of Global Crisis Perceptions measured the sentiments of citizens from 23 countries toward their national Covid-19 crisis management efforts. This is assessed across four key performance indicators: national political leadership, corporate leadership, community and media.
With an index score of 77, Vietnam is ranked second globally by its citizens for its Covid-19 response and first among the Southeast Asian countries. Only 14% of Vietnamese citizens were angry or frustrated during the crisis – the least of any country surveyed.
One factor contributing to the country’s excellent performance is that 94% of the Vietnamese felt that keeping the public informed about the virus had worked in their favor in managing the pandemic.
David Black, founder and chief executive officer of Blackbox Research, said in a statement that Vietnam’s impressive score reflects the country’s swift and aggressive measures to clamp down on the spread of the virus as well as its regular and transparent communication with the public on the ongoing case investigations.
He pointed out that Vietnam’s effectiveness in curbing the spread of the virus so far has led to a heightened level of trust and confidence among citizens in their leaders, especially when comparing the country with some of its Southeast Asian neighbours who have at times struggled with testing, contact tracing and handling new clusters of cases.
“As one of the first countries to ease social distancing measures, others in Southeast Asia will be closely watching Vietnam as it works toward restoring normality and rebooting what has been a strong economy in recent times,” he remarked.
With an index score of 85, China tops the index with the most citizens rating its performance favorably across all four indicators. Ranked behind Vietnam are the United Arab Emirates and India (59), which are tied for third place.
With a deepening economic slump evident across the world amid nationwide lockdowns, business leaders are also being put to the test in terms of how they respond to the crisis.
In Vietnam, businesses are playing a greater role than in other countries as it is only one of two countries with more than half of its citizens (64%) rating their country’s business leaders favorably, well above the global average of 28%.
“While citizens in other countries are reporting that their countries’ business leaders are not doing enough, the Vietnamese do not feel the same. Instead, the Vietnamese are able to see tangible contributions by businesses in the country to help their workers and the wider community. More importantly, there is a concerted effort from both the public and private sectors, which is especially crucial in times of health crises of this magnitude,” Black said in the statement.
Once the crisis is over, the three things people globally most want to see are a full economic recovery in six months (58%), healthcare reforms (52%) and better use of technology for contact tracing (49%).
