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© Reuters.File photo: People wearing protective masks sit before receiving a dose of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) vaccine during a mass vaccination program at Tangerang City Hall in Tangerang, a suburb of Jakarta, Indonesia
Authors: Martin Petty and Stanley Widianto
(Reuters)-Southeast Asia escaped the worst when the coronavirus pandemic broke out last year. Now the number of deaths and cases is at record highs. Inadequate vaccination and highly infectious mutations have derailed containment efforts.
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 blockades can act as a circuit breaker to prevent May. A sharp rise after the case began 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 of a month ago, and the daily death toll 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.
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 recorded more than 4,000 new cases for the first time on Thursday, which was also the day with the highest number of deaths, while Cambodia had the highest number of cases and deaths in the past nine days.
Health experts said that the low testing levels in Indonesia and the Philippines, the most populous countries in the region, may also cover up the full extent of the epidemic, while testing levels in Myanmar have fallen since the military coup in February.
Panic buying
Vietnam’s reputation as a coronavirus success story is threatened, 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 fraction of Indonesia.
Concerns about the lockdown prompted panic buying in supermarkets in the epicenter of Ho Chi Minh City this week, and its main stock index plummeted 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 the implementation of the agreement.
He also mentioned the need to expand the scope of vaccines to better protect the population, and pointed out that in the absence of Western brands, Sinovac vaccines dominate due to China’s vaccine diplomacy.
“Vaccines certainly have benefits, but they also have their weaknesses. Why? In a larger-scale response to the pandemic… 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 Modern (Nasdaq stock code:) and Pfizer-BioNTech/Cominarty, for medical staff who are concerned about resistance to mutations and mainly receive inactivated virus vaccines manufactured by ConoXing China.
Singapore is one of the few bright spots, and the authorities are expected to further relax restrictions after detection of the Delta variant 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.
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