Ricardo Saludo
BEFORE the headline topic, a plea for government and health authorities here and abroad to give drastically more attention and effort to developing and disseminating medication and equipment to treat coronavirus disease 2019, or Covid-19, plus maintaining proven preventive protocols, instead of relying mainly on vaccines in the eagerness to declare victory over the pandemic and open up economies.
As global health experts urge, all the world must get jabbed to reduce serious or deadly Covid. But in truth, vaccines are not being produced and disseminated fast enough to prevent countless multitudes of gravely, if not fatally ill people. And even where most people have been immunized, new variants like Delta break through, spawning infections in much the same alarming numbers as in pre-vaccine days.
The lesson from variants then is three-fold, especially with the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) causing Covid.
Vaccines cannot totally stop infections, so keep face masks and shields on, which together confer well above 90 percent protection from the disease. Plus, avoid enclosed and crowded places.
The constantly mutating microbe will tend to spawn more infectious and resistant variants, which ironically are helped to become dominant by vaccines clearing away less resistant versions and letting the tougher and more transmissible kind take over.
That underscores the imperative to give at least as much attention, effort and resources to developing, testing and disseminating remedies, which would serve to stop viruses of whatever strain, instead of helping the resistant proliferate.
Not to mention save lives, especially those denied vaccines by the moral enormity of rich nations hogging three-quarters of the world’s jabs, including many hundreds of thousand wasted because millions in wealthy nations refuse vaccination.
Conquest, war, deprivation and death
Turning to the headline topic, Asia’s seemingly better fate during the pandemic’s depredations last year has now gone south. From India to Japan, Myanmar to Indonesia, Asian nations are reeling from Covid-19’s renewed assault, probably led by the Delta variant, said to be many times more transmissible than the original SARS-CoV-2 first found in Wuhan, central China.
Easing restrictions late last year or early in 2021, many nations let down defenses just when Delta swept across the planet. Vaccines expected to stop its spread didn’t work as well as advertised, so masks are coming back after being banished with disdain.
What’s worse, turmoil and conflict are compounding the threat in Afghanistan and Myanmar, as deteriorating civil authority and rising violence are breaking down public health systems and creating what could be superspreader states.
As if this pandemic calamity and its harrowing economic fallout did not bring enough agony and tragedy, domestic and international one-upmanship between political and geopolitical rivals is distracting leaders from containing Covid and reviving economies, plus threatening to ignite war, with disconcerting impact on investment crucial to recovery.
The march of the extremist Taliban, suppressed for two decades by American and European might, are conquering most of rural Afghanistan and now threatening cities. Government forces are putting up a stronger fight in urban areas, but from the moves by Russia and China to reach out to the rebels, their takeover seems to be looming.
The upshot is that the Taliban resurgence cannot but spur extremism across Asia, helped no doubt by the exponential growth of social media, driven in large part by the lockdown on work and school, shifting billions of workers, students and shoppers online.
India’s Covid explosion proved worse than even the worst nightmare, and it added to Covid woes worldwide not just be exporting Delta, but also holding back hundreds of millions of jabs the country was contracted to provide the Covax program spearheaded by the World Health Organization to provide 2 billion vaccines to developing nations.
Turning to Myanmar, the junta’s bloody takeover is racking up body counts from either coronavirus or security forces. The coup probably pleased Chinese strategists wary of the elected National League for Democracy’s swing to the West. Now, America and Europe, along with the United Nations, want to turn the clock back, and are pressuring the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) to browbeat the putschists.
Beijing and Moscow, however, support the junta, which looks set to dig in even if the citizenry get wiped out. Meanwhile, Thailand is bracing for possible Covid-infested refugees streaming out, possibly adding to its own Delta-driven eruption.
Also bleeding from the variant’s surges are Malaysia and Indonesia, with the Philippines fighting to prevent a similar calamity. And as if that weren’t taxing enough for Asean leaders and governments, China and America, along with the latter’s allies in the region and across the globe, are not letting their own Covid woes stop their verbal jousts and increasingly militaristic test of wills.
Where is all this going? Nothing nice and dandy, for sure. Let’s just hope Asia keeps its focus on getting tough on Covid instead of the saber-rattling belligerents around.
Repubished from Manila Times Aug. 05 2021