Asia has seen a spike in Covid-19 instances. These charts present what’s actually happening

Asia has seen a spike in Covid-19 cases. These charts show what's really going on

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For much of the pandemic, these places were held up as Covid-19 success stories, as stringent border rules helped them avoid high cases and deaths — even as the pandemic took hold around the world.

Now, they’re among a number of places across Asia Pacific battling unprecedented outbreaks.

While the surge in cases can partly be explained by the highly contagious Omicron variant breaking through the region’s defenses, that’s not the whole story.

In some places, rising case numbers are a symptom of living with Covid as governments accept that trying to eradicate the virus is an unrealistic pursuit. In other places, skyrocketing cases are being blamed on a lack of planning by authorities caught off guard, despite two years of warning.

Asia’s highest ever peak

Many of the places reporting the most cases per capita in the Asia-Pacific region — which spans eastern and southern Asia and Oceania — were previously seen as success stories.

Those include South Korea, New Zealand, Vietnam,…

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