Covid-19 in East Asia, not the success story originally played out

[brad465]

In recent weeks/months, a number of countries in East Asia who were widely praised for their pandemic responses that kept a lid on infections without lockdowns, are now experiencing surges that relatively speaking are of concern to them and puts their whole approaches in doubt. The four that stand out are Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and Vietnam:



Japan's situation has of course fuelled calls to cancel the already postponed Olympics, while the graph of Taiwan in particular looks particularly striking. I expect as a result many of those who were using these countries to explain why we should have gone for a zero covid strategy will fall silent as a result. That said, the BBC do have an article from a day ago about Taiwan:

Covid-19: What went wrong in Singapore and Taiwan?

They were once hailed as success stories, but both places are now seeing a steep rise in virus cases.

www.bbc.co.uk

They've been hailed as virus success stories - places that have seen virtually zero or single-digit Covid cases since the start of the year.
But this month, Singapore and Taiwan have both seen a sudden and aggressive rise in cases - with Singapore logging 248 new cases just last week, and Taiwan 1,200 local infections.
Both places have gone into a heightened state of restrictions, limiting the size of social gatherings and closing schools.
By global standards, these numbers may seem small - but for these places, these figures would have been unthinkable just months ago. So what exactly went wrong?

A tale of complacency: Taiwan​

Taiwan was among the first places to ban foreign visitors almost as soon as China reported the emergence of the virus - and these tough border restrictions still remain in place.
Locally however, the population started to become complacent - as did its government.
Hospitals stopped aggressively testing people for Covid, even those with a fever - a common symptom of the virus, according to Associate Professor Lin Hsien-ho of the National Taiwan University.
According to online publication Our World in Data, Taiwan was administering just 0.57 virus tests per 1,000 people in mid-Feb. This compared to Singapore's rate of 6.21 and the UK's rate of 8.68 at around the same period.
"There was a general assumption even with people showing symptoms that the probability of having Covid-19 was essentially zero," Dr Lin told the BBC, adding that it stemmed from a belief that the virus could not break through Taiwan's strong borders.
"Doctors were not taking it seriously, hospitals were not alert, they were not doing a lot of contact tracing. There was definitely a certain sense of complacency."
This was especially highlighted when Taiwan relaxed its quarantine requirements for non-vaccinated airline pilots from an initial 14-day period, to five days - and then, just three days.
Shortly afterwards, a cluster broke out connected to a handful of China Airlines pilots who had been staying at a Novotel near Taoyuan Airport. Many of those linked to this cluster were later found to have contracted the UK variant, known as B.1.1.7.
The virus then spread through the community, eventually making its way to Taiwan's "tea houses" - adult entertainment venues.

I don't have anything against these countries' people, but I think in essence their latest troubles with covid show that even with the best strategy available, we can't beat nature at its own game and eventually nature will win.

(Some circles suggest Singapore is also having problems now, but this isn't showing up on graphs I think as much as the other 4)

 

[kristiang85]

Well we saw the same with European countries such as Czechia or Hungary, who were praised for their initial harsh lockdowns and containment of COVID, that when the next 'season' came it ran rampant amongst a population that had low immunity due to less exposure. Nature always wins out...

 

[brad465]

Well we saw the same with European countries such as Czechia or Hungary, who were praised for their initial harsh lockdowns and containment of COVID, that when the next 'season' came it ran rampant amongst a population that had low immunity due to less exposure. Nature always wins out...

Germany as well for that matter, I remember last summer we were being compared to them because at that point the "20,000 or less deaths would be a good outcome" applied to them as they were on around 10,000 after the first wave. But then the second wave with many peaks changed that, causing them to admit their Test & Trace was useless; the virus simply got too good.

I think Taiwan will be one to watch from here in particular, given it looks like things are just taking off rather dramatically. Similar for Vietnam, although I'm not sure how much coverage they'll get in comparison.

 

[brad465]

I thought I would update this to reflect on the impact of delta in east Asia, which seems to be having a profound effect. South Korea is now dealing with record high daily case rates, while places like Vietnam and Fiji didn't even have a pandemic before now in comparison to the waves that seem to be ripping through their territories right now. Indonesia and Malaysia also seem to be having problems, although I can't recall whether these countries ever tried to go for a zero-covid approach.

 

[bb21]

Taiwan's situation is entirely the government's own doing, but then again what can you expect from a bunch of self-interested fraudsters.

 

[greyman42]

Taiwan's situation is entirely the government's own doing, but then again what can you expect from a bunch of self-interested fraudsters.

But it was not long ago that some people were singing their praises.

 

[seagull]

Must be those masks they all wear.

 

[bb21]

But it was not long ago that some people were singing their praises.

They did stumble across what turned out to be effective controls at the beginning, more due to political gesturing than anything, but always placed politics above actually dealing with the pandemic. The situation is very different to that of South Korea, Japan or Vietnam.

It is a long story but suffice to say they had ample opportunities to avoid this getting out of hand, and now the people are suffering thanks to the witless and corrupt government in charge.

 

[brad465]

They did stumble across what turned out to be effective controls at the beginning, more due to political gesturing than anything, but always placed politics above actually dealing with the pandemic. The situation is very different to that of South Korea, Japan or Vietnam.

It is a long story but suffice to say they had ample opportunities to avoid this getting out of hand, and now the people are suffering thanks to the witless and corrupt government in charge.

I certainly think this is the case in Myanmar, given the coup and unstable situation there hampering response. I wouldn't be surprised though if to an extent at least the virus' evolution has improved its ability to infect and transmit, regardless of how much caution is shown.

 

[Yew]

Interesting how all of those who used Japans statistics to vindicate mask mandates don't seem to be making that point any more.

 

[big_rig]

I must have missed the Emergency Summit from Pretend SAGE about the threat to the world posed by Indonesia...

 

[yorksrob]

I must have missed the Emergency Summit from Pretend SAGE about the threat to the world posed by Indonesia...

No, we're a "world hub", which apparently means we have to stay in lockdown in perpituity for the sake of everyone else according to them.

 

[takno]

Interesting how all of those who used Japans statistics to vindicate mask mandates don't seem to be making that point any more.

Japan's policy all along appeared to owe more to carefully avoiding testing and counting rather than any interventions as such.