Mobilizing the police from the top down as public health partners in combatting COVID-19: A perspective from Vietnam

Community-based policing in COVID-19: a 4-P’s priorities of Vietnam’s police

“…After one and halfcentury later, during 20 years, from clarifying the role of the 'police-state' to protect state and community by Chapman (1970) to its specialised arguments about 'what works' in community policing by Sherman (1986), we have been looking for the best productive and effective model to balance policing and police response in crime prevention, unfortunately, both of them did not predict what should police to conduct their community policing in health crisis like COVID-19 pandemic now (van Dijk and Crofts 2017, Punch 2019, van Dijk et al 2019. Very different to democracy states such as Canada, the U.K., and U.S. where permits and calls 'private security could take over protecting hospitals and other critical institutions' (Luna et al 2007, p. 13), VPF has to escort and protect these locations as one of the mandatory duties to ensure 'nothing-in-nothing-out' during lockdown (Luong et al 2020). In other words, in Vietnam, police play as central role in 'intensive teams' to conduct these duties and the case of Truc Bach's cluster is one such typical evidence to illustrate the continuous presences of police at the Hong Ngoc's International Hospital when applying isolation plans.…”

“…In Vietnam, on the other hand, as a daily routine, when bad things happen, people call the police (Lucius 2009, Grossheim 2018. Public health agencies would take the leading role in dealing with a flu pandemic, but police would be involved from start to finish, because the public always looks for the police to answer their questions and solve their problems (Luong et al 2020). To some extent, therefore, any planning in policing and the police response to calls for engaging powers in the whole of the community is critically important, because it would almost certainly save countless lives (van Dijk andCrofts 2017, van Dijk et al 2019).…”

“…However, Vietnam is a stand out case in point. The first record of COVID-19 in Vietnam was on 23 January, where Ho Chi Minh City officials reported two confirmed cases involving people who had recently travelled from Wuhan city of Hubei province, China (Luong et al 2020). At the time of writing, the country has reported no new cases of community transmission for 60 consecutive days, while the number of confirmed cases stood at 332 with 320 patients recovered and zero deathsa remarkable feat for a nation with limited resources but with a vast and growing population of nearly 100 million people (Minh and Bich 2020).…”

“…As quick action as possible, in response to the coronavirus emerging in the Wuhan, the VPS requested directly all government sectors to take immediate measures to deal with the epidemic. One national slogan -'Fighting the Covid-19 epidemic is like fighting the enemy' was propagated to call for the most excellent attention and consensus politics in the whole of the country by the leaders of the VPS (Luong et al 2020). It was a very similar situation when the VPS mobilised the entire political system and all citizens in preventing the 2003 SARS (Rothstein et al 2003, Lucius 2009; responding COVID-19 now is as a fight to protect national security and maintain social order.…”

“…It was a very similar situation when the VPS mobilised the entire political system and all citizens in preventing the 2003 SARS (Rothstein et al 2003, Lucius 2009; responding COVID-19 now is as a fight to protect national security and maintain social order. Therefore, soon after China officially reported to the WHO several cases of unusual pneumonia on 31 December 2019, Vietnam finalised a health risk assessment (Luong et al 2020). After then, Vietnam established the National Steering Committee for , including a full representation from multiple Government ministries, departments, branches, mass organisations, and officials and soldiers from the armed forces and law enforcement agencies (LEAs), in which the Ministry of Health (MOH) played as a permanent agency of NSCC via their Rapid Respondent Team -RRT.…”