Shallow graves of people suspected to have died from COVID-19, Prayagraj, India, May 2021
Ritesh Shukla / Reuters

At the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, Vivian Balakrishnan, the foreign minister of Singapore, predicted that the novel coronavirus was going to pose an “acid test of every single country’s quality of health care, standard of governance, and social capital.” His observations turned out to be prescient; countries in Southeast Asia, including Singapore, escaped the worst of the pandemic by relying on their strengths in these three areas. By contrast, nearby India has failed on all three counts as it contends with an overwhelming, devastating second wave of the virus.

New case totals have dipped from their peak

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