Page 62 - AEI Insights Vol. 7 2021

AEI Insights, Vol 7, Issue 1, 2021

The active cases in Malaysia declined from a peak of 2,596 in early April to less than 250 cases
by late June. The highest number of cases was recorded in the Philippines by the end of
September, followed by Indonesia, Singapore and Myanmar. The pandemic is less serious in
Thailand, Cambodia, Lao PDR, Vietnam and Brunei. (Table 1).

The Malaysian Government imposed a nationwide Movement Control Order (MCO) intended
to flatten the infection curve and to reduce burden on the health care system. Between 18 and
31 March, the public was encouraged to stay at home. All schools from kindergarten to higher
education institutions, as well as government and private premise were temporarily closed for
two weeks. Essential services, such as water, power, electricity, telecommunications, oil, gas
fuel, broadcasting, finance, banks, health, pharmacy, defence, defence, food and retail services,
remain available. The MCO was extended by two weeks until 14 April as there were still large
numbers of new cases. The MCO has been extended further to 28 April 2020 and to 12 May
2020. During these periods, employees were encouraged to work from home. However,
workers in the service sector and other sectors that require workers to be physically present at
work to complete their jobs were severely affected. Several stimulus packages have been
launched in Malaysia, including electricity discounts, employee monetary assistance schemes,
direct cash payments to 4 million low-income households, wage subsidies, SME grants and
loans and tax deductions. (The discussion in this paragraph and the following is drawn heavily
from the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) 2020).

A widespread testing, detailed contact tracking and a mandatory well-implemented quarantines
were used to avoid the virus in the neighbouring country, Singapore. However, in April, the
city-state experienced a surge of cases involving dormitories of foreign employees. New
community infections continue at a lower rate. A ‘circuit breaker’, similar to the MCO in
Malaysia, was implemented on 7 April 2020 to ensure the public to stay at home. The ‘circuit
breaker’ was later extended to 1 June 2020. Singapore reopened schools and 75% of its
economy gradually, allowing one-third of employees to return to their work in offices and
factories from 2 June 2020. Students from elementary school, secondary school and junior high
school returned daily from 29 June 2020.
The Singapore government announced multiple stimulus packages, namely the one-off
payments to citizens, wage subsidies, and relief funds to self-employed workers. As part of a
workfare income supplement scheme aimed at assisting the bottom 20 percent of the
workforce, about 400,000 low-income employees were eligible for cash pay-outs starting on
28 July 2020. A 33-million-dollar campaign was launched by the Singapore Tourism Board to
support domestic tourism and redirect foreign spending. The government has spent about 70.4
billion dollars (approximately 20% of GDP) before April in response to the COVID-19. The
expenditure was Asia's most extensive and most combative stimulus package. Eventually, in
August 2020, Singapore and Malaysia began to reopen their country borders permitting limited
business travel among their citizens.

In Indonesia, the government declared an "Emergency of Public Health" on 31 March 2020
enabling regional governments to impose social restrictions such as closing schools and offices
and restricting the holding of religious and public meetings. The implementation of quarantines
and lockdowns varied considerably, depending on the location. Jokowi unveiled a five-point
plan on 4 May 2020 to foresee the second wave of the pandemic: (1) The Large-Scale Social
Restriction Evaluation; (2) testing, contact tracking and isolation goals for provinces under the
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