I have no idea what the government's official stance on masks are at the moment. I've asked a ton of people including the few Vietnamese friends that have and nobody really knows the answer to that at the moment. For the most part people are still masked up in most places but i've noticed as time goes by the more and more people are walking around without them on and I hope if this is a trend of some sorts, that it continues.
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It wasn't that long ago that masks were required at the beach, even when you were in the water, which I found particularly amusing and ridiculous at the same time. In my mind this would only encourage drowning in a group of people that aren't exactly world class as far as their swimming skills are concerned.
Over time, the masks in the water malarky was eliminated, then you no longer had to wear masks on the sand unless you worked at one of the little bars there, and now signs instructing that you have to wear masks have been completely removed from the beach altogether. Most people on the sidewalk / boardwalk still wear masks unless they are at one of the cafes. I've always found this to be really stupid, if you are walking somewhere Covid gonna get ya! But if you sit down in exactly the same area Covid doesn't stand a chance!
The other day I walked into a popular 24 hour convenience mart that exists all over Vietnam called Full Market. This is only a hundred meters or so from my house and I am a regular there. I don't wear my mask on the walk to the place, but out of respect, I put it on when I enter the store... not because I believe the masks actually do anything, but because I don't want to be a jerk.
On this particular day as I approached the door I noticed that almost no one in the store had masks on and most of the people were Vietnamese. Also, there was a large group of Vietnamese people sitting outside drinking and eating snacks and none of them were masked. Therefore, I didn't wear my mask in the shop either and no one batted an eye including the staff.
Is this a sign that we will soon be free from this mask prison? I certainly hope so because even though I am a bit biased the best information I can find online comes to the conclusion that those cheap "dentist masks" that everyone wears have almost no chance of preventing the spread of Covid, even when worn correctly and most people including me, are not wearing them correctly. I have had the same mask for weeks and from what I have read, this is also a bad move.
The point is that I think that at least for my city, it looks like we might be headed towards people not wearing masks unless they elect to do so. In the past there were hefty fines for people that didn't wear one and I even heard a few stories about people being fined for wearing it improperly and not covering their nose.
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Once that step is done maybe we can also get rid of these really silly screens that exist in many retail environments but are completely missing from any other sort of business. In my local convenience store, most people approach from the side anyway because they can't hear the clerk through it.
While I don't want anyone to get sick I think at some point we need to at least consider that these precautions accomplish little to nothing other than to inconvenience people. I'm still going to wear a mask when I am around locals who are doing so because if there is one thing that I have learned in the past from being an expat, locals will quickly point the finger at foreigners any time anything goes wrong. This isn't Vietnam specific, my own country does the same thing as it seems we blame almost everything on Mexico or Russia without paying much attention to whether or not they actually did anything.
I look forward to the day when Vietnam will join a lot of the rest of the world in returning to normal like they were before all this began 2 years ago (has it been longer than that? I've stopped counting.)
I'm from Cebu in the Philippines and last weekend, I attended a gathering of not more than 250 people. During the learning sessions of the event, we all did wear our masks but during the fellowship (dinner and party) people didn't bother to wear masks at all. It felt great actually to not wear masks. It's been 3 days and I'm not feeling anything. Just like you, I wish we'll altogether move on from this Covid situation. Hopefully! 😁
I think that this is the way things are moving. I don't think there is anyone in the world that can conclusively state that masks actually prevent the spread of Covid so yeah, it's time to move on. Hope you had fun at your event!
We have an Italian restaurant around the corner locally to us and is also a local hangout watering hole. There is sanitiser at the door but no one wears masks even though you carry one with you and is the only normal place around. I expect sometime this year we shall see masks disappear and the Chinese and Government officials involved in the tenders will not be happy. This is dragging on for all the wrong reasons and is that obvious.
At least here where I live the sides of the road and the beach are covered in discarded masks. Vietnam didn't have the best waste-disposal record prior to this but now we have probably millions of these things just floating around on the roadside.
As it is now I carry a mask with me in my pocket but I rarely put it on my face.
In Borneo you are required to wear a mask indoors. For outdoors, mask is optional.
well i guess that is a step in the right direction. When I see people outside that are walking by themselves and not around anyone else but they still have a mask on I wonder what is going on in their minds.
I hope that things will return back to normal.
Times are a changin'. Cambodia just repealed the mask mandate about a week ago. I hope things keep moving in this direction, and would love to see land borders fully open soon.
do you still feel as though you need to wear yours in order to prevent any "finger pointing" at the foreigner?
There are only like 80 people in the village we live in, and now we're all familiar, so no worries there. Even the old town we used to live in, and where we still run for tofu, there's only a few thousand folks, so I'm a familiar face there too. I'm not sure of the vibes in the capital or not, and I also don't know if a business can impose mask regulations despite the government mandate being repealed. Things work very differently here above the clouds, that's for sure, we're far too isolated to know.
⋆ ᴛʜᴇ ᴘʟᴀᴄᴇ ғᴏʀ sᴏᴜᴛʜᴇᴀsᴛ ᴀsɪᴀɴ ᴄᴏɴᴛᴇɴᴛ ᴏɴ ʜɪᴠᴇ
⋆ sᴜʙsᴄʀɪʙᴇ ᴛᴏ ᴛʜᴇ ᴀsᴇᴀɴ ʜɪᴠᴇ ᴄᴏᴍᴍᴜɴɪᴛʏ
⋆ ғᴏʟʟᴏᴡ ᴛʜᴇ ᴀsᴇᴀɴ ʜɪᴠᴇ ᴄᴏᴍᴍᴜɴɪᴛʏ ᴠᴏᴛɪɴɢ ᴛʀᴀɪʟ
⋆ ᴅᴇʟᴇɢᴀᴛɪᴏɴ ʟɪɴᴋs 25 ʜᴘ⇾50 ʜᴘ⇾100 ʜᴘ⇾500 ʜᴘ⇾1,000 ʜᴘ
I think the Thais are addicted to wearing masks. They wear them all the time everywhere, even alone in their car or in their home. I cant understand it at all. Many people wear 2 masks. It's just weird. Then they eat in a crowded restaurant. If you are so worried about covid that u wear a mask (or 2) all the time - why eat in a public restaurant. Wake up Thailand.
My friend who lives in Chiang Mai says the same. He sent me a picture of a farmer on a tractor in the middle of a field all by himself with a mask on. I hope that in that particular situation the farmer was wearing it because of the diesel fumes and not because he believes his plants are going to give him Covaids.