On 1 October 2021, restaurants and barbers reopened in Ho Chi Minh City after more than three months of pandemic restrictions. More than a dozen delivery riders and customers queued at a noodle shop, while another pho shop kept people 1.5 metres apart. One customer waited over thirty minutes for pho; another waited nearly two hours for a haircut.
The lines served different reopening systems. Food shops handed out takeaway meals in sequence, while barbers operated a longer-contact service at no more than half capacity. Breakfast and a haircut—ordinary errands before lockdown—became two distinct measures of how quickly the city could restart.