What about the name?!

(Baonghean) - To date, over 100 children have died from measles. Some people wonder why, with so many deaths, it's not called an epidemic but still referred to as a disease. Simply put, the Ministry of Health, the governing body, hasn't officially declared an epidemic, so they don't dare say so, even though they know for sure it is. Saying it outright could lead to lawsuits and accusations of intentionally causing public panic. It's best to speak in a safe way. The reason they only say "over 100 children..." is because the figures released by the authorities are not accurate, so it's difficult to predict what's right and wrong. They choose to speak in a general way to be appropriate.

Someone pressed further: Why, when there's an outbreak, are they still refusing to acknowledge or announce it? This part was a bit tricky because they asked me, but I didn't know who to ask. So I went to Google and typed "why hasn't the Ministry of Health announced a measles outbreak?" and in less than a minute—specifically 0.5 seconds—I got 691,000 results. I carefully read through about a thousandth of them, but still couldn't find a satisfactory answer; they were all just probing questions and guesswork. Basically, they were afraid that announcing it would expose many things that would severely damage the industry's reputation, such as the annual "false reporting" of the number of children receiving expanded immunization, which consistently showed figures of over 90 to 100%.

Declaring it an epidemic is tantamount to admitting the weakness and shortcomings of the healthcare system, which has been powerless against this common disease. The reputation of the healthcare system is the political lifeline of many. Therefore, some question whether they have prioritized political life over the lives of children, hence their resolute stance. This is a very serious matter, and without reliable "witnesses or evidence," it's best not to speculate. One person in the healthcare sector even suspects that declaring an epidemic might reveal a much more serious and dangerous issue: that the quality of vaccines administered over the years has been poor or substandard, failing to achieve the target of specific immunity against 11 diseases for the target groups in this program? If this assessment is correct, then after this year's measles epidemic, what other disease outbreak will follow?!

In short, the Ministry of Health has so far stubbornly refused to officially announce to the public that there is an outbreak. As for why they haven't announced it, nobody knows for sure because the "head" refuses to say. Some jokingly suggest it's because the name of the "head of the ministry" means "unwilling to back down." Therefore, they are resolutely refusing to compromise or back down in the face of public pressure and therefore refuse to make an announcement. It sounds humorous, but there's some truth to it.

Yeah, or maybe it's because of the name?

Artisan