Asia Is Watching the US COVID Response

When COVID-19 hit the world in early 2020, global confidence in the United States faltered as the country that supposedly led the way in international scientific research struggled to keep the pandemic at bay. Conversely, Asian nations including China fared far better in stopping the spread in the initial stage of the pandemic as basic public health policies, including universal masking and stringent contact tracing measures, took hold.

The United States made a comeback by 2021, however, as it dominated the race to develop a vaccine to fight COVID-19. While former President Donald Trump stays away from promoting inoculation against COVID-19, it was nonetheless under his watch that Operation Warp Speed took flight, committing over $10 billion initially to develop, manufacture, and distribute vaccines. By early 2021, when vaccines developed by Pfizer, Moderna, and Johnson & Johnson began to be available to all American adults, U.S. confidence in its ability to finance, innovate, and mobilize to find a solution to the world’s most immediate challenge surged. At the same time, global confidence in the United States also returned. Even today, with vaccines developed by China and Russia readily available, it is U.S. brands that remain the most popular and are regarded as most effective worldwide.

Still, as the pandemic continues to rage into 2022 with the latest Omicron variant particularly virulent, confidence in the United States is beginning to take a hit yet again, especially in East Asia. For one, the number of breakthrough cases even with three doses of the vaccine is rattling the faith of many who had expected the shots to keep infections rare, if not completely prevent them. In addition to the efficacy of the vaccines, there are two examples in particular that have highlighted the differences and heightened wariness in the third year of dealing with the global pandemic.

First, the fact that U.S. military bases in Okinawa and Iwakuni became clusters where the Omicron variant first spread shook the Japanese public’s opinion of U.S. adherence to COVID-19 restrictions. Except for a brief period last autumn, Japan has effectively banned non-citizens from entering the country throughout the pandemic, while Japanese nationals returning to Japan from overseas face one of the most stringent quarantine regimes in the world. These measures have largely been lauded by voters as an effective way of keeping the pandemic at bay. U.S. military personnel in Japan, however, had been the exception to Japan’s usual requirements of repeated testing and over a week of quarantine, even for those who test negative.

Since the Omicron outbreak, U.S. military bases have imposed stricter measures to reflect Japanese government guidelines. That has not stemmed public outrage over the fact that U.S. military personnel abide by different rules than Japanese citizens, despite being based on Japanese territory. While there has been no movement to push out U.S. troops as a result, a growing sense of the deep divide in how the two countries have approached COVID-19 and Japan’s inability to impose its rules on the United States – even on Japanese soil, despite the potential dangers that could pose to its citizens – have been highlighted as a result of the Omicron outbreak. Certainly, it has added fuel to the flames of anti-U.S. base sentiment in Okinawa. For the country at large, there is a greater sense of unsettled relations with Washington as a result.

Second, the fact that the United States now lags behind South Korea, Japan, and Taiwan when it comes to vaccination rates despite being the first to roll out the shots has been disconcerting to the respective governments. The continued politicization of the pandemic has not only baffled Seoul, Tokyo, and Taipei, but has also led to growing worries about the deeply rooted polarization of the U.S. political scene, even extending into issues of health, which remains a largely apolitical topic in Northeast Asia.

Nevertheless, as the pandemic continues to spread but with its deadliness on the wane, there is certainly an opportunity for the United States to restore confidence in dealing with COVID-19 in the eyes of Asia. For one, the current approach of focusing on testing and the mass distribution of COVID-19 kits for testing at home as well as providing N95 masks is setting a standard for other countries across the Indo-Pacific to emulate, once high vaccination rates are achieved. At the same time, Washington has pursued a policy that has been far more amenable to keeping its borders open, especially to those from Northeast Asia, over the past two years. The increasingly apparent U.S. decision to coexist with COVID-19, rather than trying to stop its spread, will also be an approach other countries across the region should be monitoring closely.

As the pandemic enters its third year, it is clear that there is no silver bullet that can spread the spread of COVID-19 and its variants. That includes the reliance solely on the power of pharmaceuticals and drug innovation, or trying to stop the spread outright through shutdowns. The challenge for governments moving forward from now is to be able to develop a sustainable approach to living with the virus without jeopardizing economic growth or facing significant health risks. The United States may be on its way to developing such an approach, which could be a model for others to follow.