Disinformation in Asia; Phuket Tourism Reopens: Virus Update

(Bloomberg) -- Millions of people in some of the worst Covid hotspots in Southeast Asia are in no rush for inoculation or just saying no, swayed by disinformation on social media from both local sources as well as anti-vaccination movements in the U.S.

Phuket reopens for tourists starting Thursday, as the Thai resort city seeks to get its tourism industry going again despite the spread of the more virulent delta strain of corovirus in the region. Tourism accounts for more than 90% of Phuket’s economy and employment.

Moderna Inc.’s chairman vowed to keep testing the drugmaker’s Covid vaccine in variant studies and advised against “putting our guard down” as new mutations continue to emerge.

Johnson & Johnson expects to start its first teen Covid-19 vaccine study in the next few months. Vulnerable groups in the U.K. may be given Covid-19 booster vaccines starting from September.

Key Developments:

Global Tracker: Cases top 182 million; deaths pass 3.94 millionVaccine Tracker: More than 3 billion doses administeredAnti-vaxxer disinformation spreads in Asia, endangering millionsJ&J to begin first teens Covid-19 vaccine study this fallIs Singapore Imprisoned by Its Covid Success?: Daniel Moss

CureVac Vaccine Data Disappoints (6:15 a.m. HK)

CureVac NV said its messenger RNA-based Covid-19 vaccine provided full protection against hospitalization and death for people under 60, though its overall efficacy trailed that of similar shots already in use around the world.

The German company said its vaccine was 48% effective at preventing disease of any severity, slightly higher than seen in a preliminary readout of the trial results but well behind the efficacy rates of more than 90% shown by Pfizer Inc. and Moderna Inc.’s mRNA shots. U.S.-traded shares of CureVac tumbled more than 10% in after-hours trading in New York.

Phuket Reopens (7 a.m. HK)

Thailand is pushing ahead with plans to jumpstart its crucial tourism industry by reopening the popular resort island of Phuket to vaccinated travelers, even as the more virulent delta strain of coronavirus sweeps through the region.

Inoculated tourists from low- and medium-risk countries such as the U.S. and Spain will be allowed to holiday in Phuket without quarantining, starting Thursday. If successful, the experiment could lead to a wider reopening of the Thai tourism industry as soon as October.

Disinformation Spreads in Asia (5:55 a.m. HK)

False claims are fueling vaccine hesitancy in some pockets of the region, undermining efforts to vaccinate some of the most vulnerable people in Asia and end a pandemic that has stalled the global economy.

Despite some of the highest rates of new cases in the world, recent surveys have shown vaccine resistance is prevalent in the region. In the Philippines, 68% of the people are either uncertain or unwilling to take the shots, according to polling company Social Weather Stations. A third of Thais have doubts or refuse to be vaccinated, according to the Suan Dusit Poll, while a separate survey in Indonesia showed nearly a fifth of the population hesitating.

Anti-vaccination propaganda is a big reason for that hesitancy, which has further slowed takeup in countries already struggling with limited supplies. Less than 10% of the population in Thailand and the Philippines have received even one shot.

J&J to Study Shot in Adolescents This Year (5:05 a.m. HK)

Johnson & Johnson expects to start studying its one-dose vaccine in children 12 to 17 years old this fall, a company official said at a Johns Hopkins University virtual event. The drugmaker plans to sign up at least 4,500 adolescents and will check their progress a year later, according to J&J’s Macaya Douoguih. The company plans four studies in minors, she said.

The Pfizer Inc.-BioNTech SE vaccine is already approved in the U.S. and Europe for that age group.

Caribbean Sees Signs of Travel Rebound (3:45 p.m. NY)

Some Caribbean nations are seeing signs of a recovery in tourism after border closures and the Covid-19 pandemic decimated their economies last year.

The Dominican Republic received 1.4 million visitors in the first five months of the year, a trend that should accelerate in the second half of 2021, Hector Manuel Valdez Albizu, the country’s central bank president, said in a webinar with Bloomberg. More than 390,000 people visited the country in May, a 20% increase on April, but still shy of the more than half a million visitors in May 2019.

The Bahamas, where GDP contracted 16% in 2020, is also starting to receive cruise ships at its ports, and hotels are rehiring some of the workers laid offlast year, Bahamas Central Bank Governor John A. Rolle said in the webinar.

World Prepared for ‘Wrong Pandemic’: Covax (3:45 p.m. NY)

The world was somewhat prepared for a pandemic before Covid-19 struck, but it anticipated the wrong kind, said Aurelia Nguyen, managing director of the Covax facility for the nonprofit Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance.

“A lot of the focus had been on influenza,” Nguyen said Wednesday at the Bloomberg New Economy Catalyst virtual event. “We had the machinery in place thanks to seasonal flu vaccines, but we were not prepared for a coronavirus.”

Now that Covid vaccines have been developed, the next step is to get them to countries worldwide -- the mission of Covax -- and ensure that vaccines are available to poorer nations when the next pandemic inevitably hits, she said.

Bulgaria to Assign Color Codes to Countries (12:40 p.m. NY)

Bulgaria, which has had its borders open to visitors from most countries, will introduce a color-code system from July 1, the health ministry said in a statement. The criteria for the three categories -- red, yellow and green -- will include rates of new cases and positivity of tests, identification of worrying new variants in the countries, as well as the lack of enough information. The government in the Balkan country, which has the EU’s lowest vaccination rate, is preparing for a new wave in the fall amid the spread of the delta variant in Europe and slow inoculation.

Valneva Said to Be Nearing EU Vaccine Deal (7:52 a.m. NY)

The European Union is closing in on a deal with Valneva SE to purchase its vaccine for the region after resurrecting talks abandoned earlier this year, according to people with knowledge of the situation.

The EU and the French biotech are a few weeks away from finalizing a so-called advance purchase agreement, said the people, who didn’t want to be identified because the discussions aren’t public

Moderna Chairman Warns on Variants (7:28 a.m. NY)

Moderna Inc.’s chairman vowed to keep testing the drugmaker’s vaccine on variants and advised against “putting our guard down” as mutations emerge.

The new strains stem from “a natural process but it is concerning,” Noubar Afeyan said in an interview on Bloomberg Television. “We really don’t know where these variants are going to go.”

The comments come after Moderna said its vaccine produced protective antibodies against the delta variant.

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