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Are Asia's Covid 'winners' entering shaky new territory?

 Closed shops in Asakusa district in Tokyo

 Australia. New Zealand. Singapore. Vietnam. Japan. Hong Kong. South Korea. Taiwan.

These places in the Asia Pacific region have all been praised for their pandemic response; with several ranked among the best in the world.

All were able to get on top of Covid-19 in 2020 through aggressive actions like strict lockdowns and contact tracing, which were later often replicated by the rest of the world.

Yet in the second year of the pandemic, they are being challenged by new issues. Stronger variants have broken through established defences, creating the worst outbreaks yet in some countries.

Meanwhile, many other parts of the world appear to be surging ahead with vaccinations and are beginning to gradually open up again. That means that many of these poster boys of Covid containment are now facing criticism that they don't have a solid plan to get out of their zero-case approach - and that they can't hide from the world forever.

The initial successes

First, let's look at how these states managed to combat Covid so successfully early on. The map below shows case and death rates far lower than those seen in most other nations.

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