Indonesia COVID-19

After economics and trade, the health sector has become a priority focus of Beijing's engagement with Southeast Asia's most populous nation.

The head of the state-owned firm Bio Farma says that the development of IndoVac will "help reduce the nation's dependency on imported vaccines."

In recent months, Southeast Asian nations have begun stripping away pandemic-era travel restrictions. But tourism recovery is likely to be slow.

The surge has prompted the authorities to reintroduce some limited social restrictions on Java and Bali.

Propelled by the Omicron variant, the country's daily caseload has increased more than 30-fold in just under a month.

The government made a last-minute decision to ditch a plan that would have required most of the public to pay for the jabs.

The fast-spreading coronavirus variant is clouding the region's economic recovery.

The arrival of the fast-spreading strain of COVID-19 threatens to unwind months of progress in containing the virus.

Unlike the U.S. and Europe, the nation is much less directly integrated into global supply chains.

The decision reflects the Indonesian government's desire to prioritize the attainment of herd immunity in the capital Jakarta.

After a challenging year, the region's governments have ample reason to take the emergence of the new strain seriously.