Within days of China announcing its first case of Covid-19, Vietnam was mobilising to stop the spread of the coronavirus.

Using mass texts, TV ads, billboards, posters and loudspeakers, the government exhorted the nation's 100 million citizens to identify carriers and trace contacts, contacts of contacts, even contacts of contacts of contacts. Rapid isolation of outbreaks has kept Vietnam's death rate among the lowest in the world - well under one death per million people.