If there is a lesson we have learned in the last two years it is that Sars-Cov-2 has no borders, nationality or political color. But not the governments trying to contain it. An overview of how the two regions are dealing with the virus today
One problem, but many different measures. A "zero-case" strategy and dozens of nuances of "living with the virus". As many, how different are the protocols, procedures, bureaucracy, and the mobilization of human resources in the fight against Covid-19. Almost two years have passed since the official alarm of the World Health Organization (WHO), Wednesday 11 March 2020, and now the world is preparing to enter the third pandemic year. At that time, the responses of governments had already taken different paths, as were the socio-economic effects caused by national strategies. The complexity of the issue soon lowered the immune defenses of the relationships that kept the social, economic, health and political structures of all countries in the world running. And the emergence of new variants continues to require constant adjustment of virus containment strategies. What is happening between two similar but equally different universes like the European and the Asian one?
Data
According to data from the Johns Hopkins Institute, Covid-19 caused the deaths of over five and a half million people worldwide during the month of January. Of the more than 350 million registered cases, most seem to gather around the European and North American region, with the case of India raising the regional average for Asia. It should be noted, however, that in the Asian area the confirmed cases of Covid-19 would be far lower than the official figures. The OCTA research team in January made an estimate of Covid-19 cases in Manila to be 6-15 times higher than what was reported by the authorities. Another known example is that of India, where the real cases of the second wave (spring 2021) would have been fifteen times greater than the official data, thanks to the size of the population and the territory combined with the lack of adequate tracking and treatment services.
Strategies
China is today the only major country to pursue the "zero cases" strategy: a challenge made even more complex by the coincidence of holidays for the Lunar New Year (1-11 February), Beijing Winter Olympics (4-20 February) and the arrival of the Omicron variant (recorded January 14 in Tianjin, about 100 km east of Beijing). The protocols are virtually unchanged since 2020: a single case of local transmission is sufficient to activate the local emergency mechanism, which includes mass tests, movement restrictions and localized lockdowns until the authorities deem it appropriate. To support this strategy, the tracking system validated by a personal QR code remains valid, which can signal the person's belonging to a risk area and hinder movement or access to "at risk" places such as railway stations. In some cities the authorities have asked citizens to stay at home during the Lunar New Year holidays (the period that records the record for the "greatest human migration" in the world), while in others preventive mass screening has been carried out.
This does not mean that the Chinese population is peacefully experiencing these restrictions. Even the People's Daily (renmin ribao) now seems to have an ambivalent approach, more careful to defuse the sentiment of the population. The finger remains pointed above all against local authorities and "imported" infections: no longer just the cold chain and the virus that travels on frozen products, but also postal parcels or pets.
The rest of the Asian countries have come close to measures of coexistence with the virus similar to those in Europe, but in many countries there is a certain attention to daily prevention strategies: masks, hand cleaning and self-isolation. Not for nothing had 2020 been the year of "virtuous Asia", which had been able to contain the virus due to a response mechanism already trained by SARS in 2003, by the H1N1 flu in 2009 and by MERS in 2015. The rules were somehow clear, and the health authorities already prepared for the state of epidemic emergency. This does not exclude that Sars-Cov-2 has put even the most prepared countries in difficulty, especially with the persistence of new, more contagious variants.
For this reason, entry restrictions remain valid throughout Asia, which in most cases are reserved for family reunification or for work reasons. All arrivals from abroad are usually subject to a quarantine that can last from two weeks to a few days, again depending on local policy. Those most penalized by the movement block have reduced the control measures in different ways: in some cases, the guarantee is a complete vaccination cycle, in others the low rate of contagion of the country of origin - in some cases eliminating the quarantine as happens in so-called "travel bubbles". In some cases, a QR code confirms the immunity of the subject and allows access to some places. All strategies that European countries have also implemented with the aim of facilitating travel in the Schengen area, even if the arrival of the Omicron variant is - once again - dividing governments on whether to reintroduce quarantine to the vaccinated subjects.
Vaccines
Vaccinating citizens has become a priority to attempt a less sacrificing solution to economic and political interests in most countries in the world. Antiviral pills for emergency use are also starting to be approved in Southeast Asia, while in others the production of these drugs has begun locally: one of the latest cases concerns Laos, which has obtained the license for produce Molacovir.
While the European Union pushed to vaccinate as many individuals as possible, the Asian continent also tried to shift attention from lockdowns to inoculations of anti-Covid doses. This happened (and is happening) at a slower rate. Let's take two of the nations with the highest rate of infections in their respective region. Since the start of the pandemic, France has recorded over 15 million cases and over 125,400 deaths out of 65,449,748 million inhabitants, while 74.7% of the population has completed the vaccination cycle. Indonesia has reported over 4 million cases, but 144.20 deaths out of a population of over 278 million inhabitants, of which 44.3% are vaccinated with two doses. Here the vaccination campaign was mainly supported by Chinese serums, while another part of the supplies comes from the COVAX global distribution mechanism. After the obstacle of "national" accessibility in the global distribution of vaccines, the variable of "local" distribution capacity remains. The example of Indonesia is also useful in explaining how complex it is to organize a vaccine distribution strategy at the local level that considers the actual human resources deployed in the field. A problem that also belongs to the rural areas of mainland China, but where there is a greater capacity to mobilize resources, albeit with its defects that vary case by case: this is what happened in Xi'An, where the "disorderly" management of emergency prompted Beijing to punish the figures responsible for the virus containment strategy. Japan and South Korea have also been able to obtain positive results from vaccination campaigns, but another problem is not completely excluded: the refusal of the vaccine. Although Eastern Europe has one of the highest rates of rejection of the anti-Covid vaccine, pockets of resistance to health policies have also been registered in Asia. In the Philippines, President Rodrigo Duterte threatened to "hunt down" the unvaccinated, while in Myanmar the refusal of the vaccine has become a form of passive resistance to the regime and a protest in China (accused of supporting the military and main junta vaccine provider in the area).
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