Escaped the worst coronavirus The pandemic broke out last year, and Southeast Asia’s death toll and cases are now at record highs. Inadequate vaccination and highly infectious mutations have derailed containment efforts.
As countries such as the United Kingdom, Germany, and France prepare to lift most of the remaining restrictions after the devastating outbreak, Southeast Asian governments have been tightening measures, hoping that targeted lockdowns can act as a circuit breaker. Stop the sharp rise after it starts to rise.
Indonesia is the worst-hit and most populous country in the region. It recorded 38,391 cases on Thursday, six times the number a month ago, and the number of daily deaths within a week doubled from the beginning of July.
Hospitals on the most populous island of Java are being pushed to their limits, with insufficient oxygen supply, and four of the five designated COVID-19 cemeteries in the capital Jakarta are nearly full.
With the surge in COVID-19 cases and deaths, Asian countries are forced to lock down again
A record number of deaths were reported in Malaysia and Thailand on Thursday, and the authorities proposed to restrict internal travel as the delta variant that caused severe damage in Indonesia spread rapidly in Bangkok and its surrounding areas. A new terminal at the Thai Capital Airport is being transformed into a 5,000-bed field hospital.
Neighboring Myanmar saw more than 4,000 new cases for the first time on Thursday, also the day with the largest number of deaths, while Cambodia had the largest number of cases and deaths in the past nine days.
Health experts said that the low testing levels of Indonesia and the Philippines, the most populous countries in the region, may also cover up the full scope of the epidemic, while Myanmar’s testing levels have declined since the military coup in February.
Panic buying in some countries
Vietnam’s reputation as a coronavirus success story is under threat, with more cases in the past three days than in the first 13 months of the pandemic, although the record 1,314 cases on Thursday are only a small part of Indonesia.
Fears about the lockdown prompted a rush to buy in supermarkets in the epicenter of Ho Chi Minh City this week, and its main stock index plunged 4% on Tuesday.
The capital, Hanoi, halted public transportation from infected clusters to isolate the outbreak in the southern commercial center. Some of the country’s strictest restrictions will take effect on Friday.
Dicky Budiman, an epidemiologist at Griffith University, said that the region is struggling to deal with the Delta variant and is paying the price for inconsistencies in strategy and information delivery and agreement implementation.
He also mentioned the need to expand the scope of vaccines to better protect the population, and pointed out that when Western brands are unavailable due to China’s vaccine diplomacy, Sinovac vaccines dominate.
“Vaccines certainly have benefits, but they also have their weaknesses. Why? In a larger pandemic response… vaccines cannot exist alone,” he said. “Vaccines need to be diversified. Resources need to be diversified.”
The vaccination rate is still very low, with 5.4% of the 270 million people in Indonesia fully vaccinated, about 2.7% in the Philippines, and 4.7% in Thailand.
Malaysia has vaccinated 9.3% of its 32 million population and imposed an increased blockade of its capital and industrial belt.
Indonesia and Thailand are considering the use of mRNA vaccines for booster injections, such as Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech/Cominarty vaccines, which are used by most medical workers who receive the Huaxing inactivated virus vaccine made in China, because they are worried about their resistance to mutations.
Singapore is one of the few bright spots, and the authorities are expected to further relax restrictions when the Delta variant is detected and complete the immunization of half of the population later this month.
The city-state plan allows fully vaccinated residents to participate in large gatherings such as concerts, conferences and sports events.
(Edited by Ed Davies and Simon Cameron-Moore)
View link »
