A man rides past the Kuala Lumpur Towers as Malaysia enters a COVID lockdown. (Photo: EPA-Yonhap News)
[Anchor]
Malaysia has begun a tough lockdown to curb a surge in coronavirus infections.
It's the latest country in Southeast Asia to strengthen restrictions as more transmissible variants of the virus sweep the region.
The BBC's Jonathan Head reports.
[Reporter]
The government has announced a nearly 1 billion dollar spending package to ease the economic impact of the lockdown.
But like other countries in the region, Malaysia is held back by its relatively slow vaccination rollout.
Only 3.5 percent of the population has been fully vaccinated against COVID.
And that's a lot better than neighboring Thailand and Vietnam, which have barely started.
In part, this reflects the difficulty in obtaining sufficient vaccines.
But in both Thailand and Vietnam, governments were slow to order vaccines because their impressive success in controlling COVID last year led them to believe that they had more time.
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