Several Asian countries are imposing tighter COVID-19 restrictions as much of the Western world lifts them.
Governments in parts of southeast and east Asia are struggling to ramp up their vaccination programmes, with some seeing recent spikes in locally transmitted COVID-19 cases after a general reduction.
In contrast, countries across Europe, such as the UK and Germany, and the US are steaming ahead with inoculating their populations and are seeing cases dip as a result.
This is the situation across the region:
Taiwan
The island nation has been widely lauded for its success in curbing the spread of COVID-19 despite close ties with China, with 14 deaths and 2,260 cases in total.
But the past week has been its worst since the pandemic started, with more than 1,000 cases discovered – mostly locally transmitted – sparking…
