On March 11, 2020, the World Health Organization labelled the spread of COVID-19 a “pandemic,” one headline in a drawn-out day marking the start of a surreal era of quarantines and containment, ‘distancing’ and 'doomscrolling,’ and variants and vaccines.
The pandemic battered parts of Asia: India recorded at least 530,779 deaths from COVID-19, the third-most of any country in the world. Nearly 161,000 people died from the virus in Indonesia, which had the highest mortality rate of any Asian country.
COVID-19 also disrupted trade across the Asia Pacific. Export restrictions and an over-reliance on Chinese manufacturing and inputs snarled worldwide supply chains. Right before the pandemic, for example, China was producing 60 per cent of the world’s protective garments and 59 per cent of the world’s surgical masks.
Borders closed, too, and families and friends were separated. China, for one, only fully reopened its borders in 2023, nearly three years after the WHO’s declaration.
Australia’s call for an inquiry into the origins of COVID-19, meanwhile, led Beijing to impose manifold sanctions and restrictions on Australian exports, encompassing beef, barley, coal, cotton, wine, and more. It took four years for China to fully lift those restrictions.
Trump withdrew the U.S. from the WHO in January due to the organization’s “mishandling of the COVID-19 pandemic,” among other issues. Washington’s withdrawal spells not only financial troubles for the WHO — the U.S. contributed 12 per cent of the organization’s budget — but could make it harder to mount an effective response to the next pandemic.
