, July 30 -- Vietnam beat back its first wave of coronavirus infections by embracing U.S.-supported pandemic strategies that the Trump administration largely ignored.

Now the Southeast Asian country is using the plan to combat its first cases in more than three months, seeking to keep its record as one of the few places in the world that hasn't reported a single Covid-19 death as of this week.

Even before Vietnam confirmed its first cases in late January, Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc ordered officials to break out the blueprint developed in 2014 during a global health security project, funded in part by US-AID and created with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other organizations. Strict adherence to the plan al...