Coronavirus tsunami could drown Southeast Asia, with its effects rippling across the globe

In Southeast Asia, a region of some 655 million people, a humanitarian catastrophe looms as the Covid-19 pandemic advances and economies falter. The number of officially confirmed cases across the region is lower than the hardest-hit parts of the world. But these numbers are accelerating and the reported figures will represent only a fraction of the true number of infections. Even if the virus proves to do less well in warm climates, Southeast Asia has all the ingredients for larger-scale…