It is clear now that Thailand's de facto strategy for handling the coronavirus pandemic is to minimise local infections and wait for a safe and effective vaccine. The recent discovery of just one Thai in a Bangkok suburb who tested positive sent the country into near-panic mode after 100 days of zero local transmissions, similar to the case of an Egyptian military official who visited Rayong province in July and tested positive thereafter.
The Centre for Covid-19 Situation Administration (CCSA) has succeeded both in keeping Thais safe and also perpetuating a "zero" mindset among them. For better or worse, this means Thailand has to hope, pray and pay more attention to the increasing politicisation of vaccine development abroad.
So far in the anti-Covid fight, countries with effective public health systems have stood out. While virus-handling strategies have varied, they are correlated with degrees of openness. Countries with open strategies where outbreaks have been relatively contained and consequently reopened, are seen in much of Europe and Asian countries such as Taiwan and Singapore. Thailand and New Zealand, on the other hand, remain closed and caught in a trap of their own making. Having brought the virus under control with single digit or zero daily local infections, popular expectations are fixated on keeping the virus away at all costs. Both these countries have imposed quarantine rules so strict as to deter foreign visitors and in so doing, devastated local hospitality-related industries.
Yet other countries have seen runaway infections, notably India, Brazil and the US. The Worldometer coronavirus table of 215 countries and territories says it all, akin to a global league ranking in reverse order, with those worst-hit and most poorly managed at the top.
It may well turn out that countries in the middle with a moving mix of objectives between public health and safety, and economic reality, will re-emerge in better shape. For instance, Singapore, a small country with more than 57,000 infections and just 27 deaths, with more than one third of its 5.8 million population tested, is open to business as much as possible, with tight quarantine and hygienic standards. The Singapore approach has been to deploy its public health resources to cope with infections while maintaining a robust recovery rate and keeping the death toll down.
Over time, the island state is likely to emerge from the Covid-19 period readier to move on with better prospects for herd immunity before and after an acceptable vaccine becomes available.
Somehow the extremes of having uncontrollable outbreaks or flattening infections to zero or single-digits may not be a long-term optimal answer. Somewhere in the middle of tolerating infections for economic activity and livelihoods while upholding recoveries and minimising deaths may ultimately prove most effective under fluid virus conditions and shifting priorities. Those countries that have lived with the virus more widely and effectively will stand in better stead to move on.
All countries have now staked their collective future on a coronavirus vaccine. While the contagion is unabated, the Covid-19 pandemic has elicited and politicised a race for a safe and effective vaccine. Russia has reportedly come out with a vaccine and rapid inoculation of the front lines of its workforce, such as healthcare workers and teachers.
Other countries in the vaccine hunt feature China, the US, and the United Kingdom. As with the pandemic, major countries are competing with each other when opportunities for collaboration and cooperation behove their common and collective interests. Even entrenched allies, such as the US and UK, are apart on vaccine development, not together.
Vaccine prospects have already been shaped into geopolitical instruments with geoeconomic benefits. Chinese Premier Li Keqiang, for instance, pledged vaccine sharing in doses and in expertise to Southeast Asian countries at the third Lancang-Mekong Cooperation summit on Aug 24. On another front, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi promised vaccine access to Africa at a recent meeting with his Moroccan counterpart.
Premised on its discovery and mass production, China's vaccine offensive follows its "mask diplomacy" earlier this year when Beijing offered face masks and medical equipment to Southeast Asia and beyond after China brought the pandemic under control in March. Although viewed with reservations, China's ongoing vaccine diplomacy is intended to shore up support for its pre-virus geostrategic position, especially its Belt and Road Initiative, and post-virus patronage and goodwill to support future geostrategic projections.
The US and other major powers do not currently have the wherewithal to match China's manoeuvres. When the US comes up with a vaccine, it will likely focus on health recovery efforts at home where political polarisation has been raw and visceral in a presidential election year which coincides with the Covid-19 period. The European Union also has its hands full with internal virus controls and containment to think far beyond this.
Any vaccine from the UK will likely be used in the country and perhaps in the EU before it is made available to Southeast Asia and other regions without vaccine development capacity. Japan in the era after Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and South Korea, in view of the constant North Korea threat, are too preoccupied at home and the immediate neighbourhood to engage in vaccine diplomacy of their own. So if Russia's vaccine version succeeds and is followed by China's, then geoeconomic advantages will likely accrue much less to the West than to Beijing and its growing clout.
Finally, size, regime types, and growth models may matter more in the international politics of vaccine development than earlier anticipated. Naturally, economies with critical mass and large domestic markets will have an advantage. Yet China's 1.4 billion population and India's 1.2 billion people, as alluded to earlier, stand in stark contrast. Larger markets alone are an insufficient condition without consumer buying power and virus containment.
The Covid-19 outbreak and contagion year is pivotal because China's real GDP may surpass that of the US in 2020. In any event, Covid-19 means that this superpower economic eclipse will take place sooner than many had calculated. It will be asked widely and debated fiercely whether China's single-party-dominant authoritarian political system with a state-led capitalist economy is superior than the Western varieties of democratic systems with market economies.
While all economies suffer in varying degrees from the coronavirus pandemic, China's may end up suffering less during Covid-19 and benefiting more after the virus gives way to a vaccine. As it waits for an anti-virus jab, Thailand needs to reach out in all promising directions where a workable vaccine is accessible and affordable.