Even before a commune in the northern Vietnamese province of Vinh Phuc was shut off from the outside world, villagers struggled to cope with the reality that a handful of their neighbors had been diagnosed with the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19), out of Vietnam’s 16 confirmed cases.

Vinh Phuc is struggling with its new 'reputation' as the epicenter of the COVID-19 epidemic in Vietnam as news continues spreading that 11 out of the country’s 16 diagnosed cases hail from the province.

Three of the infected patients in Vinh Phuc have recovered so far while the remaining continue their battle against the virus.

Six of Vinh Phuc’s COVID-19 patients reside in Son Loi, a commune of 10,600 people in Binh Xuyen District that has been sealed off for 20 days from Wednesday for quarantine.

Before the lockdown, Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper’s reporters made it to Ai Van, a small village in Son Loi, to see first-hand how villagers are coping with the uncertainty of life in the now-quarantined commune.

According to the Ministry of Health, Ai Van Village is home to a three-month-old baby girl who was confirmed as Vietnam’s 15th and youngest COVID-19 patient on Tuesday, allegedly having contracted the virus from her grandmother.

Authorities suspect the grandmother had been in close contact with N.T.D., a 23-year-old woman recently returning to Vietnam after attending a vocational training seminar in the central Chinese city of Wuhan - ground zero for the COVID-19 outbreak.

D. was confirmed to be infected on January 30, after having interacted with many family members and neighbors between her arrival on January 17 and her hospitalization on January 25.

From the village’s entrance, loudspeakers were blasting radio broadcasts providing updates on the COVID-19 epidemic.

Warnings printed on red-and-yellow banners calling on residents to seek “immediate” medical care upon any sign of pneumonia-like symptoms were hung on most street corners inside the village.

It was rare to spot villagers without face masks.

The general atmosphere was tense even before the lockdown, as businesses had been closed for weeks and only a few eateries were still welcoming guests.

“At first, everyone was anxious out of fear that the virus could be transmitted through the air,” said Pham Van Bon, a 53-year-old neighbor of N.T.D.

“But doctors came to the village and said it can only be transmitted between humans through respiratory droplets from infected people as they breathe, cough, or sneeze.”

According to 51-year-old Tran Thi Chung, her children, who work at local factories, are on temporary leave due to COVID-19.

Having recently ordered boxes of face masks from the south, Chung said her only wish was that pharmacies would restock their supplies of face masks, a hope that will not likely come to fruition amid the nationwide face mask shortage.

Nguyen Van Quyen, a police officer stationed at a checkpoint at an entrance to Son Loi Commune, said that similar checkpoints had been established at all entrances to the commune and were in operation 24 hours a day.

On-duty officers were tasked with measuring the body temperature of people who entered and exited the commune, instructing people on how to wear face masks, and noting down the names of those who failed to do so.

The novel coronavirus disease, officially named COVID-19 by the World Health Organization (WHO) on Tuesday, has killed 1,383 people and infected over 64,400 globally since it first surfaced in the Chinese city of Wuhan in Hubei Province in December 2019, according to the South China Morning Post.

Vietnam has so far confirmed 16 cases of the viral infection, including 13 Vietnamese, one Vietnamese American, and two Chinese.

Among them, seven have fully recovered. They were all treated for free.

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