After a year and a half of pandemic, the most advanced countries enjoy a summer of reopening and return to normality while the less developed suffer the worst of the coronavirus due to the supercontagious Delta variant. The difference is that some, the rich, have plenty of vaccines and others, the poor, do not. Eighteen months after the outbreak in Wuhan, vaccines were thought to be the beginning of the end for this life-changing pandemic. But the Delta variant has again triggered cases around the world, even among the countries with the highest vaccination rates, such as Spain, the United Kingdom or Israel. Although the increase in deaths
it has not been so great in these cases thanks to the shield that vaccines have supposed, the rebound in infections opens a debate on how to combat the coronavirus in this new phase of the pandemic.
While West, more liberal, their position of living with Covid-19 is reinforced by the protection offered by vaccines, The East continues to impose the bolt for fear of the Delta variant. But not even the closure of borders or massive confinements have prevented it from sneaking into nations like Vietnam, which last year controlled the epidemic very well but is suffering its worst blow with more than 10,000 infected and some 400 deaths a day.
Due to its extremely high transmissibility, the Delta variant has called into question the ‘Covid 0’ strategy that Asian and Pacific countries had been practicing, causing some to rethink their strict health controls for their tremendous economic and social impact. One of the first has been Japan, which has continued with its Olympic and Paralympic Games despite the explosion of cases it has suffered since last month.
Although the 70 percent of its 47 prefectures impose restrictions due to the state of emergency and its empty stadiums present a totally different picture from the crowded stands that were seen during the Eurocopa, the mere celebration of both Games only for the economic interests of the television already supposes a turning point. With a Cup of44 percent complete vaccination, the Japanese archipelago is dealing with its worst rebound after the Games, which already leaves more than 25,000 positives and between 40 and 60 deaths every day. Breaking records for two weeks until reaching 2,000 on Thursday, the number of seriously ill patients and the saturation of the stressed health system will determine the duration of the state of emergency and the closure of borders for tourists and business visas. For the sake of their economies, all countries know that they cannot remain closed forever, especially on this globalized planet that already feels shortages in its supply chains due to the coronavirus.
Relax restrictions
To return to being one of the financial and transport centers of said globalization, Singapore is already considering relaxing its strict coronavirus containment policies, one of the hardest in Asia even though the incidence of the disease has been quite low. With only 55 dead and 67,000 infected in this city-state of six million of its inhabitants, its politicians and epidemiologists are studying lifting the severe trade restrictions that are affecting its economy.
«I think we will have to
adapt to learning to live with the Delta variant and future variants of Covid-19. The question of the percentage of vaccinated population needed to prevent hospitals from collapsing is uncertain at the moment, but we will learn from the events that take place in the next half year in the United Kingdom, the United States and other countries. where the Delta variant has taken hold“Professor Hsu Li Yang, an infectious disease expert at the National University of Singapore, told the South China Morning Post.
The key in this debate is to know how many deaths a society is willing to accept in order to regain its normality. As in most countries, the most appropriate comparison in Singapore would be with the flu, which in a normal year takes about 800 lives in this city-state. Although they are many more than the 55 caused by Covid-19, they do not generate as much social alarm or harm the economy. But it remains to be seen that Singapore, one of the most developed countries in the world, assumes hundreds of deaths a year from coronavirus if it finally decides to open up again.
“We don’t know how all this is going to end or how the virus is going to evolve. It is very difficult to know if it will mutate to more attenuated or virulent forms. If you switch to more toned down forms, you will generate a death toll that is socially acceptable. But that will depend on whether it appears in the media or not, such as deaths from influenza, which do not cause alarm ”, explains to ABC Ignacio López-Goñi, professor of Microbiology at the University of Navarra.
A good example of this is what happened this summer in Spain: a fifth wave that, in his opinion, “has been more of a wave and gives us reason for hope because the increase in cases due to the Delta variant has not triggered The deaths”. In this regard, his conclusion is blunt: “If there were not so much vaccination in Spain, this fifth wave would have been a massacre. Thanks to vaccines, mortality has been reduced despite the spread of the Delta variant among the non-immunized population. Although vaccines are not 100% effective and some people who have received them can get it, the data shows that they are working and the most serious cases and deaths in the most vulnerable age range have significantly decreased.
Waiting for check the evolution of the variants and the duration of the immunity of the vaccine, of which he believes that a third dose will be needed for aging populations or a third general puncture, López-Goñi is committed to «Combine the policy of ‘Covid 0’ with immunization and strengthening the health system because the countries are not going to be able to be closed all the life ».
Even if it is not a lifetime At least one more year, it seems that the main defenders of this strategy will continue to close., like China. “The policy of ‘Covid 0’ is not debatable,” says the authoritarian regime in Beijing, which is taking advantage of the pandemic to further shield itself and distance itself from Western influence. Thanks to their confinements, massive tests and controls, the Chinese authorities have managed to stop the outbreak in a month of the Delta variant that had slipped through the Nanking airport (Nanjing), which has spread to 48 cities in 18 provinces with more than 1,200 cases.
Prevent another catastrophe
Taking out its chest in front of the escabechina that the coronavirus has caused in the West, the propaganda boasts that the maximum aim of the Communist Party is “Protect life” and he insists that the effort is worth it because the economy benefits in the long run. In view of the havoc that the Delta variant is causing in Southeast Asia, whose economies will not regain a pre-pandemic level until 2023, Beijing’s intention is to prevent at all costs another catastrophe like that of Wuhan, which had a very serious economic and social impact. With only 3.6 ICU beds per 100,000 inhabitants, compared to 34.7 in the US, 29.2 in Germany or 9.7 in Spain, their preventive efforts are easy to understand. For this reason, China is also promoting vaccination, which in the middle of this month extended with the full schedule to 777 million inhabitants, more than half of the population. In addition, 60 million adolescents between the ages of 12 and 17 have been punctured, but Chinese vaccines remain under suspicion of low effectiveness due to the confusion of their data and the serious spikes that have occurred in countries that use them, such as Indonesia.
Situation in Australia
Facing violent street protests with hundreds of detainees, Australia also continues to apply lockdowns affecting half of its 25 million inhabitants by the outbreaks in Sydney and its state, New South Wales. Although they register a thousand daily positives and already have about 14,700 active cases, their local authorities will relax the restrictions starting next week. For the rest of the country, the central government does not consider a return to normality until it has vaccinated between 70 and 80 percent of the population. Expect to do it between October and November because now only 32 percent are immunized.
But the reopening is already becoming an emergency for the central government because the confinements due to the coronavirus threaten to cause Australia’s first recession in three decades. Every day, the border closure costs him 203 million Australian dollars (126 million euros) and the latest economic data shows a drop in sales that makes you fear the worst for the third quarter. Due to this impact, many experts and ordinary people see that Australia cannot continue to apply the ‘Covid 0’ policy as strictly as New Zealand, which has once again been confined by a single contagion, the first local since February.
Australia’s next step will depend on the immunized populationBut the Burnett Institute has already warned that populous Victoria and its capital Melbourne would suffer up to 4,885 deaths if the virus circulated freely with 60 percent vaccinated. With 95 percent, the figure would be reduced to 1,346 deceased, but it remains to be seen if that figure is “socially acceptable” because the flu left 1,255 dead in its most lethal campaign, in 2017.
In addition to the protection of human life and the economic cost, philosophical values such as freedom and security influence this debate about living with the coronavirus or continuing with the locks after a year and a half pandemic.
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