Vaccine inequality is hurting Asia’s poor and the rest of the world

By Jessie Yeung, CNN Business

Crowded factories in Asia’s manufacturing hubs seemed curiously immune to coronavirus as it spread through most of the world last year.

By the end of 2020, Thailand and Vietnam had reported fewer than 200 deaths between them, and Cambodia and Laos didn’t report any at all.

But that changed this spring as many parts of Asia battled stubborn Covid-19 outbreaks that have infiltrated factories and other businesses critical to the global supply chain, threatening to disrupt the already strained flow of international trade.

The surge in cases has forced manufacturing plants throughout the region — from Thailand, Malaysia, Vietnam and Cambodia to China and Taiwan — to halt production while thousands of their workers get tested and quarantined.

The spread of Covid in countries that had been praised for their early success in…