News Covid-19 outbreak puts the poor in dire straits

Street

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vendor Le Thi Hong could not sleep as thoughts over numerous expenses bombarded her. Hong woke her child at 4 a

.

have the quality of being; (copula, used with an adjective or a predicate noun)

am

m. t

o

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To

get ready for a new

day

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. The 38-year-old

street

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vendor and her four-year-old

daughter

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lives in a 12-square-meter rented room in Dong Nai Province near HCMC. The girl, still hungry for more sleep, shared a bowl of instant noodles with her m

om.

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After the m

eager

deficient in amount or quality or extent

meagre

merger

breakfast, Hong brought her

daughter

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to an acquaintance who takes care of the child for VND60,

0

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,

00 ($2.54) a

day

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before she hit the

street

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in search of customers. She carried a basket of different tiny things like Q-tips, hair ties and key chains. Before the Lunar New Year festival, Sunday felt like payday to

street

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vendors like Hong. "On Sundays, profits were around VND500,

0

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,

00 ($21.18), enough to feed me and my

daughter

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and support my husband and our two kids back home," said Hong, one of many migrant workers who left their families in northern or central Vietnam for a job in the middle of industrial and commercial c

enters

an area that is approximately central within some larger region

centres

in the south. The

first

Linking Words

two Covid-19 cases in Vietnam, two Chinese nationals, were reported at the start of the Lunar New Year holiday, on January 23. In the wake of the Covid-19 spread, restaurants are closed, factory workers are out of work, people receive decreased salaries and shop less.

Street

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vendors like Hong receive nothing but ‘n

o's’

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when trying to make a sale. Having no luck on busy streets, Hong entered small alleys to knock on people’s doors, but to no avail. "Give me some Q-tips you," a man told Hong before grabbing a bag from her basket and walking away. "You forgot to pay," Hong called after him, but the man paid no heed. It was near noon and her shirt was drenched in sweat. Hong had only VND80,

0

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,

00 ($3.39) in her pocket, not enough for the

day

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's expenses. She took out a handkerchief and placed it on the back of her neck to alleviate the pressure of the string holding the basket she carried, and moved on to another alley. "I don’t have any rice field, fishing d

oesn’t earn

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is not earned

isn’t earned

much, I have three kids so I had to migrate to make a living. N

ow because

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Now, because

of the disease, people shoo me away like a plague when they see me. If I go back to my h

ometown I

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hometown, I

won’t know what to do," Hong said. She earns about VND100,

0

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,

00 ($4.23) a

day

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, only a

third

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of what she used to. Hong still buys her

daughter

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milk and pays for her daycare. Their meal consisting of 100 g

ram

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grams

of meat, an egg and vegetables costs VND40,

0

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,

00. Her

daughter

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usually gets the meat and egg, while Hong eats dried fish. A lot of n

eighbors

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the neighbours

neighbours

had left Dong Nai and gone back to their hometown, but Hong remained reluctant until her husband pleaded with her. "You s

tay but

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stay, but

can’t sell anything. We are together, hungry or full," he told her on the phone as she wept. She packed light and told her landlord she would return after the outbreak is contained. The mother and

daughter

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got on a bus heading to central Vietnam. She plans to buy and rear five chickens and plant vegetables to feed the family. "I wish the sea is c

alm so

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calm, so

I could catch fish to eat," she thought to herself on the ride home. While Hong headed home uncertain about her family's future, some of her

street

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colleagues in HCMC now depend on donations to stay out of hunger. In their rented 10-square-meter room in Thanh Loc Ward, District 12, HCMC, Chau Ngoc Nu, 83, and her

daughter

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Le Thi Kim Thanh, 48, both scrap collectors, waited gifts from a humanitarian agency.