The COVID Surge and Asia’s Distress

By N. GUNASEKARAN

The second wave of COVID-19 has devastated Asian people. With the surge in COVID-19 cases, people are battling to breathe due to the shortage of oxygen supply in hospitals. The high death rates are recorded due to paucity of oxygen, hospital beds and poor health infrastructures.

As of the end of May, the total number of coronavirus cases in the South Asia region surpassed 30 million, with more than 400,000 deaths. India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Bhutan, Nepal, Maldives and Sri Lanka have accounted for 18% of global cases and almost 10% of deaths. The total cases in Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos and East Timor have all doubled in May. In India, although the number of active cases is getting reduced, the total number of active cases stands at about 1.8 million.

The Prime Minister of Malaysia,Mr.Lee Hsien Loong outlined the strategy to control the spread of virus:”The solution: testing, contact tracing, and vaccinating, all faster, and more”. But many countries were not able to follow this strategy. In the past four weeks, the daily infections are surging ahead in Indonesia and the Philippines, the region’s two most populous countries. In Vietnam, it was recently revealed that a “very dangerous” combination of Indian and UK COVID-19 variants was spreading quickly by air.

Vaccination rates in many Asian countries are very low. Bangladesh has fully vaccinated 2.5% of its population while Sri Lanka’s vaccination rate was only 1.6%. Although Malaysia stepped up its vaccination campaign, fewer than 6% of people have received one dose of a vaccine. With only a smaller segment got vaccinated, the vast majority of the population remained susceptible to infections. The problems of slow vaccination, less emphasis on vaccine procurement and limited access to vaccination for the poor are all compounding the health crisis.

The deadly variants underscored the urgent need for much faster global sharing, manufacture of vaccines and mass universal vaccination for the poor to avoid huge mass casualties. It is estimated that nine out of 10 people in developing countries may not receive a vaccine in 2021.In this context, the attitude of big corporate pharmaceutical companies, who were unwilling to share the science and technology to augment production of vaccines and delaying rollout in several countries is highly condemnable.

The advanced countries, including the US, have to realize the need for sharing of vaccine doses, transfer of technology, rendering help for the development of local production capacities and supply chains for medical products. The foreign ministers of BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) also called for “consideration in WTO on a COVID-19 vaccine Intellectual Property Rights waiver.

In the absence of vaccines, controlling the spread of infections must be given high priority. The COVID-19 surge in Asia showed the failure of ruling elites in the region to spend on peoples’ welfare. Many countries in Asia had poor health infrastructure with lower numbers of hospital beds. For instance, the nuclear-armed Pakistan had 0.6 per thousand while the global average was 2.8. And, Pakistan’s healthcare spending was 3.2% of its GDP, while the average global healthcare spending was 9%. In the era of neoliberalism, health and education sectors were handed over to private corporate capital to reap huge profits in many countries. The governments boasted world-class education and health facilities for the privileged while denying such facilities for the poor.

The region suffered a significant economic setback from the pandemic. A sharp rise in coronavirus cases prompted new restrictions, factory closures resulting employment crisis. The factories supplying global tech firms, such as Apple and Samsung, are operating below capacity because of outbreaks and Thailand’s largest agribusiness, Charoen Pokphand Foods Pcl closed a poultry factory and thousands more cases have been found at factories and construction sites.

Job security and well-being of more than 91 million international migrants from Asia and the Pacific would suffer from the pandemic. Asian Development Bank report stated that “total remittances to Asia are expected to drop between $31.4 billion (baseline scenario) and $54.3 billion (worst-case scenario) in 2020, equivalent to 11.5% and 19.8% of baseline remittances, respectively.” Such a sudden stop in remittances could push people into poverty since many households are depending on international remittances.

Inadequate healthcare systems, slow vaccinations, under-investment in human development are the evils affecting the Asian region. The vulnerable sections in this region face the specter of rise in poverty, income inequality, unemployment, and slow economic growth. How to cope with the multifarious impacts of pandemic, the long-term economic consequences on the millions of working families and the ability of the nation’s healthcare infrastructure are the critical questions today.

N. Gunasekaran is a political activist and writer based in Chennai, India.

From The Progressive Populist, July 1-15, 2021

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