The COVID-19 Pandemic and Asia: Editors' Overview

The COVID-19 pandemic has been both a public health and a socio-economic crisis on a global scale. Asian countries have reported somewhat lower numbers of COVID cases and deaths than countries in other regions like the USA and Europe, which remains something of a puzzle. Several epidemiological and nonepidemiological hypotheses may explain Asian countries' lower levels of infection, such as previous exposure to a milder version of the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 conferring herd immunity; the efficacy of the Bacillus Calmette-Guerin (BCG) vaccine used in those countries; and the Asian inherent culture of social distancing and face mask use, as nonpharmaceutical interventions (NPIs). As yet, there is insufficient information to solve this puzzle.

Macroeconomic studies find that the pandemic has produced both supply and demand shocks to the economy. For example, lower consumption and fewer foreign visitors reduce demand. Factory utilization has dropped in connection with efforts to lower the spread of infection. Economic vitality remained sluggish, as measured by bankruptcies and employment, over 2020. Furthermore, government policies such as lockdowns, emergency declarations, and vaccine policies have had a significant impact on the socio-economic activities of people and firms.

This issue of the Asian Economic Policy Review seeks to draw lessons from public and private sector responses in Asian countries to the COVID-19 pandemic on how to minimize the costs of uncontrolled public health epidemics while balancing them with the socio-economic costs of reduced production and consumption. The first two papers review the COVID-19 pandemic's impacts in Asian countries from public health and economic perspectives, respectively. The quantitative and qualitative surveys conducted by Miyawaki and Tsugawa (2022) suggest that the underlying factors in this difference between Asian and other countries would include the earlier and more stringent NPIs in Asia, the younger age distribution in Asia, and the geographical characteristics of Asia. Meanwhile, Tanaka (2022) claims that COVID-19 caused significant supply shocks due to NPIs such as lockdowns, while SARS and MERS mainly caused demand shocks. As a result, the economic damage from COVID-19 was far greater than the damage from the SARS and MERS pandemics. The third paper by Fukao and Shioji (2022) analyzes the interaction between NPIs and economic activity and finds a trade-off between economic activity and infection controls. In the fourth paper, Amul et al. (2022) analyze the developments and responses to COVID-19 up to March 2021 in the Southeast Asian region from a political economy and governance perspective, and draw several key lessons, such as the need for decisive and credible leadership; a pragmatic and conscientious approach to balancing risks; transparent risk communication; good governance; and the ability to reflect and take steps to prepare for future pandemics. The fifth paper by Bown (2022) examines international trade and policy involving personal protective equipment (PPE) during the crisis, with a focus on China, the European Union (EU), and the USA. Bown (2022) argues that an optimal policy mix for a major industrial economy like the USA should have involved three components: (1) incentivizing domestic industry to add capacity and surge production as quickly as possible; and for the period during which surge capacity is ramping up and not yet available, rely on the combination of (2) previously stockpiled PPE and (3) imports. In the final paper, Kwon and Kim (2022) focus on the lessons for the health sector that can be drawn from the preparedness and responses in Asia and the Pacific to the COVID-19 pandemic.

This section summarizes the papers presented at the 33rd Asian Economic Policy Review Conference held on April 9 and 10, 2021, the comments by the assigned discussants, and the general discussion of each paper (including written comments from some participants). Owing to the COVID-19 pandemic, this conference was conducted via ZOOM.

At the time of the conference, we thought we had enough data and observations on the course of the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the situation has evolved after the conference. In particular, the fifth wave of infections in Japan starting around August 2021 turned out to be much more severe than the earlier four waves. Some of the observations and comments in this issue may have become out of date by the time of publication, but this cannot be helped given that we are taking up evolving issues.