From Movement Control to National Recovery Plan: Malaysia’s Strategy to Live with COVID-19

Abstract

With COVID-19 vaccination gaining momentum, strict lockdowns have been perceived as no longer necessary due to their far-reaching socioeconomic impacts. This overview aims to provide insight into Malaysia’s strategy in preparing to live with COVID-19 through stage-wise transition. This overview examined scholarly articles, news articles as well as official government announcements and data pertaining to the National Recovery Plan (NRP) which replaces COVID-19 lockdowns officially known as Movement Control Order (MCO) in Malaysia. NRP, which presents a stage-wise relaxation of lockdown leading ultimately to conditional reopening of all sectors and lifting of travel restrictions, adopts three major indicators for transitions of phases. The indicators are daily new COVID-19 cases, occupancy rate of intensive care units and full vaccination rate. Domestic travel initiatives have been initiated during the NRP, allowing domestic visits to certain tourist spots in the nation. Interstate travel in most parts of the nation has also been permitted without needing to show a negative COVID-19 test. On 28 October 2021, six states and three federal territories of Malaysia were already in phase 4 of NRP, which is the ultimate phase of lockdown relaxation, while all other states were in phase 3. This has resulted in a positive outlook on the gross domestic products of Malaysia in quarter 3, 2021. This overview highlights that a different approach to COVID-19 is necessary as total elimination of COVID-19 is not yet in sight. It sheds light into the use of pertinent indicators or indices to capture the status of COVID-19. Keywords: COVID-19; indicators; Malaysia; MCO; National Recovery Plan;Vaccination.