Travelling, retail activities, trade openness and COVID-19 incidence in Vietnam

Abstract

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) was first detected in Wuhan, China at the end of 2019; and then quickly spread to become a global pandemic. Vietnam, a country located in Southeast Asia, is also affected by the pandemic. The first case of COVID-19 infection was recorded in the country on 23 January 2020; and by the end of this year, the country reported a total of 1465 confirmed cases of COVID-19. Nevertheless, the disease infection incidence is different among provinces in Vietnam. In this research, we explore the effects of travel, retail activities, and trade openness on the disparities in the spread incidence of COVID-19 among Vietnam's 63 provinces in 2020, utilising cross-sectional provincial-level data. Empirical findings in this research indicate that travel activities and trade openness are likely to exert positive and significant impacts on COVID-19 incidence. In contrast, retail activities appear not to significantly affect the variance in COVID-19 incidence among the Vietnamese provinces in 2020.