COVID-19

What can Southeast Asia learn from nearly a year of responses to COVID-19? A key question, not yet answered, is how to find the elusive balance between public health concerns and economic curbs, and achieve the right balance between stringent safety measures and open borders.

This article examines the ad-hoc policy and regulation applied by the Thai government in controlling the spread of COVID-19 in the country. The Thai government erected a ‘health border’ to control mobility of the people, as well as set up a governing body, the Center of COVID-19 Situation Administration (CCSA) under the emergency decree.

Forced to follow a “no vaccine, no classes” policy, the Philippines has implemented distance-learning programs that exacerbate existing inequalities.

At their core, the shared crises of the pandemic, the climate emergency and the plastics habit reflect how human beings view their space in the natural world.

Green recovery. Social protection. Smart containment. Decarbonisation. Putting progress in climate action at par with measuring GDP. Creative capacity. These phrases have been running through conversations these days around changing Southeast Asia's template for development in the post-COVID era.

Over the last three years, Timor’s public discourse in Timor-Leste has been concentrated on the power struggle among the Dili-centered elites on the legitimacy to govern the country. The economic impacts of this political development is the economic stagnation, reflected in the GDP decline. COVID-19 adds another layers to the multitude of challenges that already existed.  

While media reports have highlighted increases of reported domestic violence in countries around the world due to the lockdown stresses, the situation is unclear in Thailand. Although many women in Thailand seek out services from non-government organizations, there is widespread belief that a large number of abused women here suffer in silence.

Before COVID-19, seafarers were sought out by family, friends and community members, bearing presents and money, when they came home. But amid the pandemic, returnees have become suspect to their own communities, who see them as outsiders who potentially bear an unseen, dangerous pathogen.

Now that Malaysia has moved from MCO to a ‘conditional MCO’ to a ‘recovery MCO’, life is getting back to some kind of normal. But as Dr Jemilah warned, society must understand we can never return to the "old normal". "That innocent and simple pre-COVID-19 world is in the past," she said. We can't think of "after the pandemic" as it is here to stay. We have to think about how to live with COVID-19.

From all indications, Vietnam has succeeded in managing the pandemic, an achievement that has drawn a lot of news coverage, some envy by countries in Asia and beyond, and praise from international organizations. But while there has been much analysis from outside about Vietnam’s response to the pandemic, what do Vietnamese themselves think?