Fears of a COVID-19 second wave grips Asia

Several Asian countries that have eased COVID-19 restrictions have in the past weeks reported new outbreaks of the disease prompting fears of a second wave that could cripple the region.

Health authorities in South Korea said for the first time this week said the country is in the midst of a "second wave" of novel coronavirus infections around Seoul, driven by small but persistent outbreaks stemming from a holiday in May.

KCDC director Jeong Eun-kyeong said it had become clear that a holiday weekend in early May marked the beginning of a new wave of infections focused in the densely populated greater Seoul area, which had previously seen few cases.

“In the metropolitan area, we believe that the first wave was from March to April as well as February to March," Jeong said at a regular briefing. "Then we see that the second wave which was triggered by the May holiday has been going on.”

At the end of February, South Korea reported a peak of more than 900 cases in a day, in the first large outbreak of the coronavirus outside of China.

An intensive tracking and testing campaign reduced the numbers to single digits by late April.

But just as the country announced it would be easing social distancing guidelines in early May, new cases spiked, driven in part by infections among young people who visited nightclubs and bars in Seoul over the holiday weekend.

"We originally predicted that the second wave would emerge in fall or winter," Jeong said. "Our forecast turned out to be wrong. As long as people have close contact with others, we believe that infections will continue."

As of midnight last Sunday, South Korea reported 17 new coronavirus cases, the first time in nearly a month that daily new cases had dropped below 20. It was a drop from the 48 and 67 cases reported in the previous two days.

China’s second outbreak is centred in Beijing, with at least 184 new cases reported since last week, as authorities cancelled scores of domestic flights, banned outbound travel and imposed a partial lockdown.

On the prospect of dealing with the second wave of the coronavirus, experts generally agree that regional governments appear to be better prepared to cope after the substantive experience they have gathered tackling the initial outbreak of the pandemic, reported SCMP.com.

However, analysts also point out that challenges remain, especially in maintaining vigilance and ensuring that small clusters are swiftly contained so they will not morph into bigger and more uncontrollable infections.

Paul Ananth Tambyah, president of the Asia-Pacific Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infection, said countries and communities most at risk of a second wave were those with ongoing cases of local transmission, with daily numbers in the hundreds or thousands.

“Although it could be argued that this is still the tail end of the first wave, there are likely to be multiple chains of transmission in those countries which have not been cut off,” Tambyah said.

Countries with high infections that Tambyah alluded to include India, which last Friday recorded the highest one-day spike of 13,586 coronavirus cases, raising the total to 380,532, the fourth highest in the world, after the United States, Brazil and Russia. Its death toll stood at 12,573.

In neighbouring Pakistan, 136 more deaths were reported on Friday, bringing coronavirus-related fatalities to 3,229 and overall infections to 165,062.

In Indonesia, the country has boosted sample testing to meet President Joko Widodo’s target of 20,000 per day. The country reported 1,331 new coronavirus infections on Thursday, its biggest daily increase since the outbreak started locally, bringing the total number of cases to 42,762. Fatalities stood at 2,339.

In the clearest sign that the pandemic is here to stay, countries that have overcome the first wave are now gearing up to stem the emergence of a second wave.

Also worrisome is the situation in Japan, where health experts say there is a high likelihood of a second wave of the coronavirus hitting the country.

Officials in Tokyo confirmed 41 new coronavirus infections last Thursday, marking the third time in the week that the capital logged more than 40 cases in a day. This brings the total cases in Tokyo to 5,674.

According to Kazuhiro Tateda, president of the Japan Association of Infectious Diseases (JAID) and a member of the committee set up by the government to combat the spread of the virus, many of the recent cases in Tokyo can be traced back to the city’s nightlife districts.

Tateda said that even though these clusters were easier to control as they were linked to traceable parts of the city, there was always the risk of more localized outbreaks.

“We do know that there is a lower risk of transmission in the summer months, which means that there is a chance of a second wave … from October onwards,” Tateda added.

in the Philippines, officials earlier said that health had been given priority over the economy as the government scrambled to establish additional medical and quarantine facilities during the lockdown with the aim of better responding to the pandemic.

While some countries already dismantled their lockdowns, Oxford Economics warned that “the second wave of infections is the key risk.”

“The recent pick-up in COVID-19 cases in some economies has prompted renewed concerns of a second wave of the pandemic,” it said.

“A rise in cases could hit activity either by triggering greater voluntary social distancing, or by the renewed imposition of restrictions on movement at a national or regional level in the worst-affected economies,” Oxford Economics said. “This could push many economies back into recession,” it added.

In a separate report last Wednesday titled “Plotting recovery paths,” Oxford Economics head of India and Southeast Asia economics Priyanka Kishore and economist Thatchinamoorthy Krshnan placed India, the Philippines and Indonesia at the bottom of the pack in the region in its recovery scorecard.

“All three are clearly still struggling to get past the peak of the pandemic, which is a major headwind to their outlooks,” they said.