Asia starts rolling out coronavirus vaccinations, after initial caution

Japan, Australia and New Zealand have started vaccinating priority groups, as have Hong Kong and Malaysia, while South Korea and Thailand are set to start

With Covid-19 mostly contained in Asia, governments have been able to wait and see how safe and effective vaccines are before starting inoculations

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A medical worker checks a box containing doses of AstraZeneca's Covid-19 vaccine at a public health centre in Seoul. South Korea will begin vaccinations on February 26. Photo: EPA-EFE

Published: 4:00pm, 25 Feb 2021Updated: 7:18pm, 25 Feb 2021

After sitting on the sidelines as the US and Europe started vaccinating against Covid-19, the part of the world that contained the coronavirus most successfully is finally starting to administer shots.

Japan, Australia and New Zealand have started vaccinating priority groups with shots from Pfizer-BioNTech and AstraZeneca. Hong Kong began its programme on Monday, Malaysia kicked off its drive on Wednesday, South Korea is due on Friday and Thailand is preparing for a few days later.

The region’s economic powerhouses and developing nations are jumping in one after another, after watching for months as desperate Western nations snatched up supply. With the coronavirus mostly contained throughout much of Asia, governments have had the luxury to wait and see how safely and effectively these rapidly developed vaccines can blunt disease in other countries, before injecting them into their own citizens.

For Asians, waiting a month or two to find out how the vaccine roll-outs work elsewhere does not hurt much, said Dale Fisher, an infectious diseases professor at the National University of Singapore. “So rather than say 20,000 in a trial, we now have 200 million vaccinated globally. I think this gives reluctant individuals a lot more confidence.”

The millions of shots already administered worldwide are yielding promising results, with few signs of serious side effects.

The Pfizer vaccine was found to be 94 per cent effective in a real world study in Israel, which has immunised more than 80 per cent of its population.

That is encouraging news for parts of Asia that succeeded against the virus by shutting down borders and going into lockdown early, but whose residents are now anxious to shed restrictions. Places like Singapore and Australia are still wrestling with the difficulties of restoring business and leisure travel. China, which has successfully stamped out flare-ups with strict local measures, risks losing its competitive edge if its borders remain closed to the rest of the world.

Still, it will not be clear sailing as Asian countries seek to inoculate their populations. Vaccine orders could be delayed amid a scarcity of supplies, as powerful governments in the US and Europe demand more stock from producers. And questions remain over the safety and efficacy of some locally developed vaccines.

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