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The largest Dutch supermarket chain, a restaurant in Canada, and a US fast food brand have been threatened with a boycott because they have provided nonstandard Vietnamese dishes. The product labelled as 'Vietnamese Pho' at the Dutch chain Albert Heijin (AH), the largest supermarket chain in the Netherlands, had to remove products labelled as ‘Vietnamese Pho’ from its shelves after negative backlash from customers. A customer said the supermarket provided chicken thighs, while the ingredients of the “authentic” pho are sliced beef or chicken. She wrote a letter to the AH board of directors and expressed her feelings about the "so-called Vietnamese pho". Vietnamese pho is a dish famous all over the world and people, if wanting to learn about it, just need to look it up on the internet. In 2020, Pho King Bon, a well known restaurant in Montreal, Canada also triggered anger among netizens when naming some dishes in a way that outraged Vietanm. The pho dishes in its menu had the names ‘Pho Kyu’, ‘Pho Kme’, ‘Pho Kit’, ‘Pho King Good’, which, if misread, could make people think of swearing in English. The restaurant guided customers to spell ‘bun thit nuong’ (vermicelli with grilled meat) into a phrase which means genitals in the French language. After facing criticism, Guillaume Boivin apologized, saying that the naming was not intended to offend anyone and the restaurant will change the names that led to the misunderstanding. Vietnamese banh my has also been counterfeited. The word ‘Vietnamese banh my wrap’ was seen on the package, but the shape and materials used to make this product are different from the original Vietnamese banh my. What made people angry was the way the banh my was processed and shaped. Its crust was very thin, rolled into an oval shape, covering the stuffing of pickled carrots, soya cheese and brown rice. In another case, Peja Krstic, the chef of a restaurant serving Vietnamese style dishes in the US, faced strong …

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The police have recommended that Duong Tan Hau, 29, a Vietnam Airlines attendant, to be charged for "spreading dangerous infectious diseases in humans." Hau breached regulations when staying at the airline’s quarantine facility and after returning home for designated self-isolation. His irresponsibility triggered a community outbreak of the novel coronavirus, according to police. He had returned to Vietnam from Japan on Nov. 14 and was quarantined for four days at a facility managed by Vietnam Airlines in HCMC's Tan Binh District. While there, Hau broke the rules by visiting another quarantine area and ended up contracting the virus from another crew member who had returned from Romania. As per Vietnam’s protocols on Covid-19 prevention, pilots and attendants need to use dedicated restrooms and their own vehicles once off the plane. No contact is allowed with passengers during flights. After two tests showed he was negative for the novel coronavirus, Hau was released from the airline’s facility, but told to isolate himself at home for another 14 days. At home, Hau came in contact with his mother and two friends, including a visiting English language teacher. On Nov. 29, 15 days after he returned from Japan, he tested positive for the virus, with the teacher following suit the next day. The latter later infected a nephew and a student. The outbreak broke Vietnam's 89-day and HCMC's 120-day streak without community transmissions at the time. Hau was placed under criminal investigation for his actions on Jan. 11, and is held under house arrest. Authorities concluded Hau’s actions had resulted in around VND4.475 billion in damage, including the cost for Covid-19 testing, contact tracing and isolation. The lives of over 2,000 people in HCMC were also affected by quarantine measures. Hau is the first case in Vietnam where flouting Covid-19 prevention regulations is treated as a crime, but he was not the last. Two others, a man in Mekong Delta’s Vinh …

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Northern Hai Duong Province, currently Vietnam’s biggest coronavirus hotspot with 684 cases, was the epicenter of a new Covid-19 wave that has swept 13 cities and provinces since Jan. 28. Over a month later, Hai Duong is still detecting new transmissions every day, though the number of infections has markedly dropped since the province entered a 15-day social distancing period starting Feb. 16. Tran Dac Phu, an advisor to Vietnam Public Health Emergency Operations Center (EOC) and former head of the General Department of Preventive Medicine under the Ministry of Health, on Tuesday said while Hai Duong has done its best to fight Covid-19 outbreaks, several challenges have caused infections to persevere in the province. The coronavirus wave in Hai Duong was noticed after a woman from the province entered Japan for work and eventually tested positive for the novel coronavirus. Vietnam was only informed of the case thanks to the initiative of Japanese authorities, meaning isolation and contact tracing in the province only commenced after Covid-19 had supposedly spread in the community over an extended period of time. Deputy Prime Minister Vu Duc Dam suspected the initial infection may have already been present in Hai Duong around 10 days prior, though no one was sure of the exact time frame or initial source. Besides late detection, outbreaks in Hai Duong were associated with large population centers, including industrial complexes with thousands of workers and their surrounding neighborhoods, significantly impeding contact tracing. On the first day of the outbreak, Hai Duong recorded a staggering 73 cases , all employees of the Vietnam Poyun Electronics Co., Ltd in Chi Linh Town, where the woman who tested positive for the coronavirus in Japan worked at. The new Covid-19 outbreak was further driven by a coronavirus variant originating from the U.K., said to be 70 percent more transmissible than ordinary strains, necessitating sped-up contact tracing, …

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