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View all search resultsASEAN is collapsing in face of COVID-19
Scientific decisions must be made quickly and systematically to protect citizens and workers before the Delta variant gains a toehold as the dominant virus.
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Prior to the pandemic in December 2019, ASEAN had set a good example to the rest of East Asia on how to avoid interstate conflicts.
In 1979-2020, the fatalities of armed forces and civilians in interstate conflicts in the region dropped by an unprecedented 97 percent as denoted by the "East Asian Peace" team project, in the Nordic Institute of Peace Studies in Copenhagen, Denmark.
Since the declaration of the pandemic on March 18 2020, however, with the exception of Singapore, which quickly set the highest target of reaching 100 percent vaccinations, almost all the member states of ASEAN have been reeling.
At this rate, Indonesia will be the chair of a failed ASEAN while also hosting the Group of 20 in 2022.
The fact is that this pandemic had many warning signs, it was not what one calls "a black swan event".
Over the last 50 years, zoonotic diseases with human-to-human transmission have been well-documented.
Yet, in spite of this the member states of ASEAN adopted an apathetic and lackadaisical attitude toward prior warnings, such as by this author and Laurie Garrett at the Council for Foreign Relations.
