Malaysia Ranked 4th In Strictest Response To Covid-19 In SEA

If you think Malaysia’s Movement Control Order (MCO) is bad because you are no longer allowed to go out with your significant other nor are you allowed to take your pet out for a walk in the park, think again.

According to the Oxford Covid-19 Government Response Tracker, Malaysia has ranked fourth in terms of how strict the government is implementing its MCO in South East Asia.

Yes, boys and girls, we are only fourth, losing out on how ‘stringent’ our MCO is compared to Laos, Vietnam and the Philippines.

The first-ever tool to track and compare policy responses of governments tackling the coronavirus outbreak around the world has gathered data from 73 countries so far.

A total of 11 indicators are used to gauge government responses which are school closures, workplace closures, public event cancellations, public transport closures, public information campaigns, restriction on internal movements, international travel controls, fiscal measures, emergency investments in healthcare and investments in vaccines.

For ASEAN countries, the stringency index of the nine countries are measured through seven indicators, rescaled to vary from 0 to 100.

A higher position in the stringency index does not necessarily mean that a country’s response is ‘better’ than others lower on the index.

The project’s lead, Thomas Hale said,

“The data collected can help decision makers and public health professionals examine the robustness of government responses and provide a first step into understanding exactly what measures have been effective in certain contexts, and why.”

Malaysia scored 85.71 on the tracker’s stringency index bringing us to a tie with Thailand which scored the same.

Also read: “Lucky to be Malaysian” – MOH Shares How Food At Quarantine Centres Are Nutritious