Not over until it is

They are taking off their face masks in many parts of the United States and 60 percent of adults have now received at least one dose of COVID-19 vaccine, according to the CDC. European countries are talking of welcoming tourists this summer, provided they are vaccinated with the vaccines they have approved.

Are they being too eager to open up, ignoring the risk of new flare-ups as this virus mutates? Besides, they have cornered the world’s supply of vaccines and that’s another danger to consider. Unless everyone is safe, no one is safe.

In our part of the world, it is too early to think the COVID pandemic is about to end. Japan, Taiwan, and Singapore are seeing new clusters of infection they didn’t expect.

The big debate in Japan is whether to go through with the Olympics. The Japanese medical community is against allowing the Olympics to take place in the midst of an upsurge of COVID cases, particularly in Tokyo and Osaka.

The Washington Post pointed out that “strict border control and a public quick to wear masks and take precautions after the experience of the 2003 SARS epidemic have meant that Taiwan recorded a little more than 2,000 cases and 14 deaths.”

“Life was so normal,” WaPo reported,” that when the government began offering the Oxford-AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine to certain groups in late March, few saw the need to get inoculated.”

Taiwan and Singapore were considered success stories in preventing widespread infection of the virus before the vaccines were available. Both are now seeing an upsurge of cases.

From virtually zero or single-digit COVID cases at the start of the year, Singapore suddenly faced 248 new cases just last week, and Taiwan 1,200 new local infections. That may not seem much for us, given that we consider 6,000 new cases a day a good day.

Both countries have instituted high levels of restrictions – from limiting the size of social gatherings, closing schools, and stay at home orders. A friend commented last week that Taipei looked like a ghost town.

Complacency and failure to aggressively vaccinate their population are at the root of the eventual failure of Taiwan and Singapore to keep the virus out. No one can relax while the virus is around.

Ironically, Taiwan banned foreign visitors almost as soon as China reported the emergence of the virus, a quick reaction we wished our DOH did. Strangely enough, the tough border restrictions are still in effect.

But Taiwan relaxed its quarantine requirements for non-vaccinated airline pilots from an initial 14-day period, to five days – and then, just three days. That’s how the current outbreak began, with one cluster of cases connected to the Novotel in Taoyuan, which was used as a quarantine center for aviation staff.

Then, WaPo reports, other clusters emerged in Taipei’s Wanhua district, connected to hostess bars and teahouses, as well as in New Taipei City and in Yilan County in northeastern Taiwan. The three clusters share the same genetic sequences of the cases in Taoyuan, suggesting a chain of transmission.

The airport was also a key source of infection in Singapore. Changi Airport became the country’s biggest COVID cluster.

A number of infected airport staff had been working in a zone that received travelers from high-risk countries, including India. The workers eat in the airport’s food courts – which are open to the public – further spreading the virus. Many were infected by the highly contagious Indian variant.

Singapore is now segregating flights and passengers from high-risk countries and regions from those arriving from lower-risk places.

If Japan, Taiwan, and Singapore had been aggressively vaccinating their populations, they may not be having the problems they have now. Vaccine hesitancy was one face of the problem, specially in Taiwan and Japan. Lack of supply is also a big factor.

Taiwan has received just 300,000 doses of vaccines for a population of 24 million. Taiwan has since purchased five million doses of the Moderna coronavirus vaccine, 10 million of AstraZeneca, and another four million doses through COVAX. Like us, they are waiting for vaccines to be delivered.

In Singapore, around 30 percent of the people have received at least one dose of the vaccine, according to Our World in Data, the highest vaccination rate in South East Asia. But they are limited by their vaccine supply. They have refused to use the 200,000 doses of Sinovac delivered to Singapore last February until they get more information to evaluate it.

Professor Kenneth Mak, director of medical services at the Ministry of Health (MOH), was quoted by Channel News Asia as saying that purchasing agreements were made with manufacturers of the Pfizer- BioNTech, Moderna, and Sinovac vaccines “sometime last year” before the completion of their Phase 3 studies.

“It so happened for both the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines that the data had been submitted in a timely fashion. And that allowed the Health Sciences Authority to grant approval soon after or just before the vaccines arrived on our shores,” Prof. Mak said.

Now, Singapore and Taiwan are talking of gearing up to have their own capability to produce vaccines. Taiwan has two vaccine candidates now undergoing clinical trials and may be available by the end of July.

In Japan, their efficient healthcare system has been overwhelmed by the latest surge. Exhausted doctors are warning of a “system collapse.”

Only about 1.9 percent of Japan’s population is fully vaccinated.

Major lesson learned from the recent experiences in these countries is to never let our guard down. The battle with the virus will not be over soon. It may just get worse before it gets better.

The other lesson is the urgent need to vaccinate. Israel has shown what a determined effort to vaccinate its population can do in bringing back normalcy to their lives. Even then, we still don’t know how long vaccine protection will last and how effective vaccines are against emerging variants.

The COVID pandemic isn’t over until it really is.

Boo Chanco’s e-mail address is [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @boochanco