As Delta variant sweeps the West, Asia faces a choice: stick to ‘zero-Covid’ approach or learn to live with it

From London to New York and Hong Kong, the Delta coronavirus variant has emerged as a potential wild card that threatens to upend plans for returning to pre-pandemic normality.
 
In Europe and North America, the rapid spread of the highly transmissible variant first identified in India has placed a question mark over hopes for a normal summer, even as climbing vaccination rates spur the rolling back of restrictions and resumption of tourism and travel.
 
In the Asia-Pacific region, the variant is fuelling outbreaks in countries that have struggled to manage the virus, while reinforcing the hyper-cautious stance of “zero-Covid” economies reliant on strict border controls, which have prevented countless deaths but have also come under mounting criticism as other parts of the world look towards post-pandemic life.

As the pandemic officially nears the 18-month mark, the mutant strain has thrown into sharp relief the urgent need to ramp up vaccinations and the painful trade-offs that come with either trying to eliminate or co-exist with the virus.

The Delta variant, now circulating in at least 80 countries, is believed to be 60 per cent more transmissible than the Alpha variant first identified in Britain, which itself is about 50 per cent more infectious than the strain first identified in Wuhan, China. Delta also appears more resistant to vaccines than other strains, although fully vaccinated people continue to be well protected from serious disease and death.

“The Delta variant is clearly much more transmissible, and that poses a huge challenge for countries with limited vaccine supplies in particular,” said Zoe Hyde, an epidemiologist at the University of Western Australia. “We’re also starting to see countries that have previously been very successful starting to struggle to contain the virus, like Vietnam. If we’ve learned anything from last year, it should be that it’s better to risk overreacting, rather than responding too late.”
 
In Britain, where authorities have delayed the country’s full reopening to July 19 amid a more than six-fold surge in infections since late May, the variant now accounts for about 99 per cent of new coronavirus cases. The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control said on Wednesday it expected the variant to account for over 90 per cent of new Covid-19 cases in Europe by the end of August. German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who has called for all EU member states to quarantine arrivals from Britain, on Thursday warned the continent was “on thin ice” due to the variant’s rapid spread.

In the United States, top infectious disease expert Dr Anthony Fauci said on Wednesday the variant made up 20 per cent of new cases and would be the dominant strain within weeks, posing the “greatest threat” to the country’s pandemic recovery.

In Indonesia and Thailand, where vaccination rates remain in the single digits, the variant is fuelling a surge in infections, leading authorities in Jakarta recently to introduce curfews in certain areas of the capital.