I don't think one should go around saying that information is fraudulent, but maybe people should suspend judgment one way or another.
There are quite a few countries with minimal reported cases, and it makes me think about the study that found "the state-specific introduction of birth certificates is associated with a 69-82% fall in the number of supercentenarian records."
South Africa has by far the most reported cases in Africa; is it possible that has some relation to how well they track them compared to other countries, and not just the underlying numbers?
I doubted their numbers originally because well... the govt hasn't been that honest in the past.
But, I've spent the last 4 years living there (came back to the US for work at the end of January). I'm in tons of Vietnam related facebook groups and I have friends there.
Whole country is open internally, nobody is wearing a mask, plane flights are full. If there was a single infection, it would be all over the news and my friends would be notifying me.
I'm pretty confident, that at this point, the govt isn't lying. They admit when they import new cases (repatriation flights) and they quarantine everyone with multiple rounds of testing. If anyone 'escapes' quarantine... it is a full on manhunt. They aren't playing games.
People commonly complain about actual observations and dismiss them as anecdotal. Sometimes I think that is going to far, and an anecdote is in fact a datum. But it's a datum, not a universe of data.
One reason I'm more confident of statistics in some countries is not just general prejudice, but that these countries have various levels of government, and statistics are reported by the lower level divisions independently, and third parties who are not the central government can and do compile them.
So, for instance, when you read about US statistics, they may have distortions or issues, but you're not (at least my sources are not) getting them filtered through the very top of the hierarchy.
This could in principle apply to Vietnam as well, but I notice you didn't make this sort of argument, that information flows out independently from centralized control.
I also notice you say you came back in January, and yet living there for four years means you know what the situation is. That sounds odd. I used to live in Virginia, and have a relative there but that doesn't mean I have particular insight into the epidemic there.
Not only do I follow global covid news very closely (like I'm sure many people do), I have very very close personal and business contacts in Vietnam and I follow all their (english) govt news, some local news that I can google translate and facebook groups, etc. I also want to go back to Vietnam. I'd know. It isn't anything like a relative in Virginia.
...and I belatedly thought, because I read an article about, some places are checking sewage and estimating orders of magnitude more cases than they thought.
So if there was somebody independent doing that in Vietnam, or wherever, then I would take claims of no cases more seriously.
Join a few expat vn facebook groups. They talk about everything happening in Vietnam. Plus, after 4 years of living there and doing business for 2 years prior to that, I have tons of friends there. I'd hear something from them.
One thing about Vietnam culture is that they gossip like no other. Everything is in the open. As soon as one 'bad' thing happens, everyone knows about it. When one girl came back from Europe and infected a bunch of people, the govt got right on it and quarantined everyone who could have potentially came in contact. Someone turned in a UK friend of mine because they heard him coughing.
After 80+ days, I haven't heard a peep from anyone to suggest that the news isn't exactly what they say it is. My friends are flying around the country like nothing is happening. People are going out and socializing. Look in the news... you see parties and clubs going off. Look at restaurants and night club facebook pages... everyone is out.
If covid was affecting Vietnam, we'd all know, immediately.
