Red Cross sounds alarm as SE Asia Covid deaths soar

Southeast Asia has recorded twice as many Covid-related deaths as North America over the past two weeks, according to the Red Cross, which warned wealthier countries that they must urgently share their vaccine supplies.
The more aggressive Delta variant, combined with a lack of vaccines, is driving record outbreaks in countries across the region – from Vietnam to Thailand, Malaysia and Myanmar.
Indonesia, the worst hit, had the highest daily death tolls in the world, with 1,466 deaths reported on average over the past seven days.
Alexander Matheou, the Asia-Pacific director of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent societies (IFRC), said it was feared fatalities would increase further.
“This Covid-19 surge driven by the Delta variant is claiming a tragic toll on families across south-east Asia and it’s far from over. We fear that as the virus spreads from cities to regional and rural areas that many more lives will be lost among the unvaccinated,” he said.
For the past two weeks, Covid deaths in south-east Asia have been higher than in any other region in the world, according to the IFRC, though the organisation cautioned that discrepancies in data collection complicated such comparisons.
Southeast Asia has recorded 38,522 Covid deaths in the past fortnight, nearly twice as many as North America, according to the Johns Hopkins University Covid-19 data cited by the IFRC.
Over the same period, Europe recorded 22,102 deaths, South America 19,356 and the Middle East and Africa 21,216. “Vaccinations are at record rates in some countries, yet many south-east Asian nations have low portions of the population fully vaccinated and are languishing far behind western Europe and North America,” said Matheou.
“In the short-term, we need much greater efforts by richer countries to urgently share their millions of excess vaccine doses with countries in south-east Asia. We also need vaccine companies and governments to share technology and scale up production,” he said.
European countries such as the UK, Spain, Germany and Italy have fully vaccinated at least 57% of their population, according to Oxford University’s Our World in Data.
By contrast, Vietnam has fully vaccinated less than 2% of its population, Thailand 7.5%, Indonesia 10.5% and the Philippines 11.6%. Malaysia has fully vaccinated more than one-third of its population.
Myanmar’s vaccination programme has virtually collapsed after the military coup.
Much of the region managed to avoid the worst of the outbreak last year, through firm border controls, lockdown measures and contact tracing.
However, the more infectious Delta variant has proved much harder to contain, while some governments have been reluctant to reintroduce full lockdowns, fearing the economic cost.
Thailand recorded fewer than 100 Covid-related deaths during 2020; since April, the death toll has risen to almost 8,000. Thailand’s cases have continued to surge despite lockdown restrictions that have shut most businesses for more than a month.
It announced 312 deaths yesterday, a record increase. However, officials said some of these deaths occurred over previous days. Of 50,151 tests conducted, 20,515 were positive.
This week, the government extended restrictions across swathes of the country, including Bangkok, where the outbreak is concentrated.
Malaysia yesterday reported 22,242 cases, a record high.
The country’s infections have continued to rise even after a nationwide lockdown was imposed on June 1.
The increase in cases has overwhelmed health systems across the region, with hospitals treating patients in car parks and turning away severely ill people.
In the Philippines, which first detected local cases of the Delta variant in mid-July, health services are already under pressure.
Nursing groups have said staff are working excessively long hours to cope with rising patient numbers and to cover for colleagues who are isolating after becoming infected.