Opinion | Covid-19’s impact on Asian children should give countries hoarding vaccines pause
- Asia is waking up to the pandemic’s silent and devastating impact on children and young people as the Delta variant smashes the myth of children’s immunity
- Lengthy lockdowns, closed schools and deaths in the family are also straining young people’s mental health even as wealthy countries corner the lion’s share of vaccines

Vaccinations are gathering speed in many parts of Asia for adults who can get their hands on doses. Jabs are under way for teenagers in some countries. But this pandemic is having a silent and devastating impact on children.
Imagine what that’s like for a child, living with the trauma of losing a parent to this disease.
This virus does not discriminate. Yet the pandemic is having an unequal impact on people who can’t access vaccines because richer countries have taken the lion’s share. It’s affecting children whose parents can’t afford to stay at home so the virus is brought in through the front door.
In Asia, both infections and deaths are higher than most could have imagined possible when the disease first broke out. Around 54 million people have been infected. Many have been hospitalised with serious and long-lasting health effects. Total lives lost from Covid-19 across Asian countries are creeping towards 1 million.