Although coronavirus disease (COVID-19) persists, driven by Omicron subvariants, the pandemic has significantly abated, with global daily cases declining from 1.2 million when Asian Development Outlook 2022 (ADO 2022) was published in early April to 738,000 at the end of June. That decline has been even more marked in developing Asia, which saw daily new cases fall from 384,000 to 82,000 in the same period (Figure 1). This decline, combined with continued progress on vaccination (Figure 2), has allowed many economies in the region to further ease COVID-19 restrictions (Figure 3). The People’s Republic of China (PRC), however, is the notable exception to this pattern. Its adherence to a zero-COVID strategy in response to renewed outbreaks early in 2022 triggered the reimposition of strict lockdowns. The export performance of developing Asia’s economies remained solid in the first 5 months of 2022 (Figure 4). Although the PRC’s exports fell in April on the lockdowns, they have since rebounded as restrictions were eased. With many economies in the region increasingly choosing to live with the virus and reopening, economic activity continued to expand in the first half of 2022—with the notable exception of the PRC (Figure 5).