Delta Variant Engulfs These Asian Countries With Fastest-Growing Deaths:
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1. Delta Variant Engulfs These Asian Countries With Fastest-Growing Deaths:
Southeast Asia's overall COVID-19 vaccination rate of 9% lags developed regions like Western Europe and North America and outpaces only Africa and Central Asia.
Southeast Asia is emerging as a battlefield for one of the world's worst COVID-19 outbreaks, due to the fast-spreading Delta variant and the slow rollout of vaccines.
With a population about twice that of the US, the momentum of the region's outbreak has now eclipsed previously hard-hit places like Latin America and India, with cases jumping 41% over the past week to more than a half-million, according to Bloomberg analysis of Johns Hopkins University data. Deaths rose 39% in the seven days through Wednesday, the quickest pace in the world, and will likely rise further as a spike in fatalities typically follows a surge in cases.
"Given the slow pace of vaccinations, with the exception of Singapore, we expect the recovery will be bumpy, and the risk of further periods of heightened restrictions remains," said Sian Fenner, Singapore-based senior Asia economist at Oxford Economics Ltd. "The rise in uncertainty is also likely to lead to further economic scarring."
Before the pandemic, Southeast Asia's largest economies combined would have been the world's fifth-biggest, behind Germany, according to World Bank data.
