In ordinary times, Singapore's Changi Airport - straddling Asia's crossroads and among the finest of such facilities anywhere - is a humming, throbbing hive of activity. It is to Asia what Dubai is to the Middle East and Africa, or London's Heathrow to Europe. But not anymore!
Commuters observing safe distancing at a bus stop near Admiralty MRT station. As Singapore battles a second surge of Covid-19 cases, many of whom are returning residents or long-term pass holders, bars and other entertainment outlets have been ordered to close until April 30. - The Straits Times/ANN
The barely active terminals are a result of the Singapore Government's decision to disallow all short-term visitors into the country as it battles Covid-19, now seeing a second surge after the island republic asked its sons and daughters overseas to come home to escape the coronavirus ravaging Europe and America. Bars and other entertainment outlets have been ordered to close; equally significant for a determinedly multicultural, multi-religious nation, mosques and churches, too.
Asia is not unfamiliar with contagion. In recent times, talk of an"Asian flu" first emerged in 1997 during the Asian financial crisis that ravaged the economies of East and South-east Asia.
In previous crises, Asia had the reassuring backing of China to fall back on. During the Asian financial crisis, for instance, having devalued severely in 1994, Beijing held the line in further depreciation of its currency and thus gave gasping East and South-east Asian economies more room to recover. It was a policy stance that won it immense gratitude around the region at the time.
Elsewhere, there is little to look forward to at the moment. The Summer Olympics that Japan was to have hosted from July, and for which it spent a reported US$12 billion, has been put off to next year, robbing Asia, and the world, of an uplifting moment amid its darkest hour. On Thursday, the Cabinet Office downgraded its assessment of Japan's economy, saying it was in a"severe situation".
In South-East Asia, the nation most at risk is Indonesia. A daily briefing pushed into my mailbox on Wednesday by The Jakarta Post asked the dire question: Will Indonesia be South-east Asia's Italy? Its report noted that Indonesia now had the highest death toll in South-east Asia, just weeks after declaring itself"virus-free".
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