In late 2019, the world watched closely as cases of an unknown virus causing pneumonia started spreading through Wuhan province in the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Gradually, more cases were being reported, and on Saturday 11 January 2020 Chinese state media announced the first fatality (Qin and Hernández 2020). While the virus, now more commonly known as COVID-19, spread across the globe with unprecedented ease, it would take the World Health Organization (WHO) until 30 January to declare the outbreak a public health emergency of international concern (PHEIC).¹ By this time, there had been 7834 confirmed cases and 170 people had lost their lives to the virus (WHO 2020a).
With the benefit of hindsight, we can now see that the virus has wreaked havoc on the world. By 30 January 2021, a year after the PHEIC announcement, almost every country and region had been hit (WHO 2021a). Over 100 million people had been infected, resulting in more than two million deaths. The interconnectedness of our modern transport systems carried people from Wuhan to ports on every continent before any viable measures were put in place, spreading the virus everywhere. As the outbreak developed, it was those nations that are geographically close to China, in East Asia and Southeast Asia, that especially struggled to cope with its scale. Different conditions have led to different results in these countries. South Korea and Vietnam, for instance, had previously experienced the dangers of public health crises during the SARS epidemic in the early 2000s, and as a result they were well-equipped to deal with the virus (see in this volume: Le & Nicolaisen, and Nguyen for Vietnam; Howe, and Kim & Song for South Korea). Similarly, Taiwan (ROC) was able to quickly respond to the outbreak (see Lo, and Liu), despite its connections to the PRC. However, countries like Indonesia and Japan were less prepared (see Yazid, Shibata, and Van der Veere). Meanwhile, Malaysia was suffering an acrimonious political shift that resulted in a delayed response to the developing public health threat (see Kamaruddin & Idris).
These examples show that talking about Asia is challenging. It is the largest region on the planet, containing dozens of political systems, thousands of languages and cultures, and billions of people. Moreover, as area studies scholars have repeatedly pointed out, any attempt at defining it has political implications, making it a difficult concept to work with (see for example the contributions in Wesley-Smith and Goss 2010). Despite this theoretical ambiguity, however, the term ‘Asia’ has real-world uses. When we visit the websites of some of the world’s largest media outlets, news from the region is frequently sorted under the banner ‘Asia’. Our understanding is therefore partly formed by our consumption of the concept of ‘Asia’, ambiguous as it may be.² This ambiguity offers some disadvantages, especially in a scholarly work such as this one. However, it offers one benefit. The main reason that we have chosen to use Asia in the title of the book is because of the diversity of the region. Leaning into the ambiguities that come with attempts to define the region allows us to offer contrasting and comparative perspectives that might enable a better understanding of how dynamic a region like Asia is, and why public health crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic develop in different ways even within such a region.
This book reflects this diversity by including chapters that respectively focus on different countries, regions, governments, and institutions. It offers local perspectives, local knowledge, and new information in an accessible and informative way. One of the main motivations for creating this volume has been to provide policy makers and health specialists with a better picture of the different strategies that have been employed in Asia during the COVID-19 pandemic. It does this using thoroughly researched and informed case-studies that are presented in an accessible format. Although every country has its own context, and every institution operates in its own place and time, hopefully this volume will deepen our shared understanding of how interconnected people and institutions interact during times of crisis.
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