COVID-19 in Southeast Asia Problems and Solutions

Abstract

The countries of Southeast Asia, like the rest of the world, have suffered substantial damage from the spread of the COVID-19 epidemic, which is assessed not only in human losses, but also in significant economic and political costs. Their assessment is the main object of the article, in which the authors made an attempt to analyze the response of the countries of Southeast Asia to the emerging epidemiological threat, underscoring both general and specific in their approaches to the implementation of anti- epidemiological and adaptation measures. It is not possible to draw a single picture of the COVID-19 in the region, since the countries of Southeast Asia differ from each other both in the number of confirmed cases of infected and dead persons and in the approach to managing the pandemic. The adoption by the country of one or another set of restrictive sanitary meas ures is dictated by the severity of the epidemiological situation, economic and political interests. Evaluation of the effectiveness of actions taken to manage the pandemic and its consequences testifies, according to the authors, that the best results were shown by countries that, firstly, took proactive measures, and secondly, demonstrated the coherence of the work of all levels of government system and transparency in the provision of information thirdly, they were able to win the confidence of the population in the fight against the pandemic, which has resulted in human sacrifice and amendments to the country’s political governance and its economic development. The political consequence of COVID-19 has been the strengthening of authoritarian tendencies in governance in several Southeast Asian countries with the consequences to the weakening of the opposition and curtailment of civil liberties. The authors concluded that the pandemic has exposed the weakness of the government administration system in a crisis, which supports the analysis of the measures taken to minimize the economic consequences of the pandemic. The article assesses the impact of the COVID-19 crisis on the economies of Southeast Asia and promises government policies to support its hardest hit sectors and populations. The authors concluded that today it is not possible to assess the entire scale of the losses incurred, as well as the measures taken to minimize them. But it is evident that the pandemic has become a challenge for governments and a test of their ability to govern a country in a crisis.