Failure to progress after fast start
Asia-Pacific region now lags in trying to rid itself of virus
SYDNEY — All across the Asia-Pacific region, the countries that led the world in containing the coronavirus are now languishing in the race to put it behind them.
While the United States, which has suffered far more grievous outbreaks, is now filling stadiums with vaccinated fans and cramming airplanes with vacationers, the pandemic champions of the East are still stuck in a cycle of uncertainty, restrictions and isolation.
In southern China, the spread of the delta variant led to a sudden lockdown last week in Guangzhou, a major industrial capital. Taiwan, Vietnam, Thailand and Australia have also clamped down after recent outbreaks, while Japan is dealing with its own weariness from a fourth round of infections, spiked with fears of viral disaster from the Olympics.
Where they can, people are getting on with their lives, with masks and social distancing and outings kept close to home. Economically, the region has weathered the pandemic relatively well because of how successfully most countries handled its first phase.
But with hundreds of millions of people still unvaccinated from China to New Zealand — and with anxious leaders keeping international borders shut for the foreseeable future — the tolerance for constrained lives is thinning, even as the new variants intensify the threat.
In simple terms, people are fed up, asking: Why are we behind and when will the pandemic routine finally come to an end?
“If we’re not stuck, it’s like we’re waiting in the
glue or mud,” said Terry Nolan, head of the Vaccine and Immunization Research Group at the Doherty Institute in Melbourne, Australia, a city of 5 million that is just emerging from its latest lockdown.
While the languishing varies from country to country, it generally stems from a shortfall in vaccines.
In places like Vietnam, Taiwan and Thailand, vaccination campaigns are barely underway. China, Japan, South Korea and Australia have seen a sharp rise in inoculations in recent weeks, while remaining far from offering vaccines to all who want one.
But nearly everywhere in the region, the trend lines point to a reversal of fortune. While Americans celebrate what feels like a new dawn, for many of Asia’s 4.6 billion people, the rest of this year will look a lot like the last, with extreme suffering for some and others left in a
limbo of subdued normalcy.
Or there could be more volatility. Worldwide, businesses are watching whether the new outbreak in southern China will affect busy port terminals there. Across Asia, faltering vaccine rollouts could also open the door to spiraling variant-fueled lockdowns that inflict new damage on economies, push out political leaders and alter power dynamics between nations.
The risks are rooted in decisions made before the pandemic had inflicted the worst of its carnage.
Starting in the spring of last year, the United States and several countries in Europe bet big on vaccines, fast-tracking approval and spending billions to secure the first batches. The need was urgent. In the United States alone, at the peak of its outbreak, thousands of people were dying every day as the country’s management of the epidemic failed
catastrophically.
But in places like Australia, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan, infection rates and deaths were kept relatively low with border restrictions, public compliance with antivirus measures, and widespread testing and contact tracing. With the virus situation largely under control, and with limited ability to develop vaccines domestically, there was less urgency to place huge orders, or believe in then-unproven solutions.
“The perceived threat for the public was low,” said Dr. C. Jason Wang, an associate professor at Stanford University School of Medicine who has studied COVID-19 policies. “And governments responded to the public’s perception of the threat.”
As a virus-quashing strategy, border controls — a preferred method throughout Asia — go only so far, Wang added: “To end the
pandemic, you need both defensive and offensive strategies. The offensive strategy is vaccines.”
In Asia, only about 20% of people have received at least one dose of a vaccine, with Japan, for example, at just 14%. By contrast, the figure is nearly 45% in France, more than 50% in the United States and more than 60% in Britain.
China, which has struggled with hesitancy over its own vaccines after controlling the virus for months, administered 22 million shots on June 2, a record for the country. In all, China has reported administering nearly 900 million doses, in a country of 1.4 billion people.
Japan also has ramped up its effort, easing rules that had allowed only select medical workers to administer vaccinations. The Japanese authorities opened large vaccination centers in Tokyo and Osaka and expanded vaccine programs to workplaces and colleges. Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga now says all adults will have access to a vaccine by November.
In Taiwan, too, the inoculation effort recently got a boost, as the Japanese government donated roughly 1.2 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine.
But all told, Taiwan’s experience is somewhat typical: It has still received only enough doses to immunize less than 10% of its 23.5 million residents. A Buddhist association recently offered to buy COVID-19 vaccines to accelerate the island’s inoculation effort, but was told only governments can make such purchases.
And as vaccinations lag across Asia, so too will any robust reopening. Australia has signaled that it will keep its borders closed for another year. Japan is barring almost all nonresidents from entering the country, and intense scrutiny of overseas arrivals in China has left multinational businesses without key workers.
The immediate future for many places in Asia seems likely to be defined by frantic optimization.
China’s response to the outbreak in Guangzhou — testing millions of people in days, shutting down neighborhoods — is a rapidfire version of how it has handled previous flareups. Few inside the country expect this approach to change soon, especially as the delta variant, which has devastated India, is now beginning to circulate.
At the same time, vaccine holdouts are facing increased pressure to get inoculated before the available doses expire. Indonesia has threatened residents with fines around $450 for refusing vaccines. Vietnam has responded to its recent spike in infections by asking the public for donations to a COVID-19 vaccine fund.