The New Coronavirus in Japan and the others of Asia. When will we be able to travel like before?
Japanese situation in Covid19
Japan has been in turmoil since last January, with several lockdowns, massive store closures, massive hotel and restaurant closures, massive fiscal stimulus, the postponement of the Olympics, and a general consensus in Japan that the Olympics should be cancelled.
(By the way, I am neither a proponent of the cancellation nor the implementation of the Olympics, but a supporter of the rescheduling. I believe that after the virus is completely eliminated, we should see the Olympics in packed stadiums with spectators from all over the world.)
Taiwan in Covid 19
Taiwan has learned its lesson from the first case of SARS, the new coronavirus, and was able to stop the new coronavirus at first by quickly shutting down the airports, but recently it seems to have increased again. But recently, it seems that the number of new coronaviruses has been increasing again. However, we are still one of the countries that are dealing with it the best.
South East Asia in Covid19
According to media reports, Thailand and Vietnam also had very good intelligence agencies and were able to prevent the outbreak by closing their airports at the beginning, but now, while they are in the transit countries of India and the UK, their structures have been hit by the mutated virus and the situation has become worse again since this spring. (In the U.S., Trump (like him or not) closed the airports early, but even earlier than that. Japan, by the way, was later than Trump and finally succeeded in closing its airports in mid-March.)
Of course, the worst situation is in South Asia, including India and Bangladesh. The situation has become very miserable.
Although India is still a developing country, it is famous for its ICT software industry in Bangalore and IITs in various parts of India, as well as for its excellent heart surgeons and generic drugs. However, compared to its huge population of 1.3 billion, India is not used to respiratory infections that spread on a large scale at one time, as it has not been exposed to SARS like Japan, Taiwan, and other Southeast Asian countries.
So there are problems such as lack of medical resources and lack of oxygen for medical treatment. And of course, India and Bangladesh are not in the same climatic zones as China, where people can easily wear masks and live, so many people don’t wear masks. (That’s true, people die quickly even from heat stroke.)
Looking at the situation, it will be quite a while before we can travel as easily in many Asian countries as we could before the new coronavirus was spread.
Vaccines are starting to spread, but there are other barriers besides the basic problem of vaccine production capacity not being able to keep up with the population, and it will take a long time for countries other than the EU, which is used to creating frameworks about several matters, to establish uniform rules such as airlines and international vaccine passports. It will probably take at least three or four years before the situation returns to normal…
