The pandemic is hardly in retreat elsewhere. The emergence of more virulent variants and the slowness of vaccination efforts in many places outside the West have contributed to deadly new waves. Coronavirus case counts worldwide are already higher in 2021 than they were in 2020.
Southeast Asia, once a bastion of resistance to the virus, is in the grip of a harrowing spike in infections. Cases in Thailand and Vietnam rose dramatically over the past month. Malaysia is now registering more new infections per million people than any medium- or large-size country in Asia, surpassing India.
In Africa, concerns are growing over the possible arrival of a new wave powered by a more transmissible variant of the virus, with the health systems in many countries at risk of being quickly subsumed by a surge of infections. A recent study found that the continent has the world’s highest death rate of patients critically ill with covid-19, thanks to limited intensive care facilities and reserves of vital medical supplies like oxygen.
In parts of Latin America, the virus rages on, largely unabated. Peru, according to its own government-adjusted data, now has the worst covid-19 mortality rate per capita in the world.
Even in East Asia, where a handful of nations set the gold standard in preventing community spread, the virus is on the march. Taiwan has seen an explosion of cases over the past month. In Japan, which still intends to host the Summer Olympics, numerous areas including Tokyo remain under a state of emergency.