Covid 19 - slow response and not the best

We are all interested to know how we are doing relative to the other Asean countries and/or the rest of the world in handling Covid 19. 

In my 15 June post, I talked about our Defence Minister saying that the govt action received recognition in a global survey (of public opinion) on how well the govt has handled the virus.  I had also said that we should be looking at “objective” indicators rather than people’s opinions.

  

In the context of “objective indicators”, in my 13 June post, I did mention about a Global Covid Index (GCI) created by Malaysia that looks at the severity and recovery of the Covid cases.  CGI then ranked countries based on the total scores for each country.  

• Malaysia ranked 12.  
• The No 1 rank is the best currently occupied by Australia.  
• NZ is ranked 6
• USA is ranked 128.

I came across another measure yesterday that was developed by the University of Oxford.

 

To compare each country’s response to the pandemic on a consistent basis, the University constructed a “stringency” index based on 13 policy responses (lockdowns, border closing, tests, etc) to measure how strongly each country responded over time.

I looked at how some of our reference countries have performed based on this index.

  

First I looked at the index at a date that is 2 weeks from the date of the 15th confirmed case in each country – a vital window for action based on a Stat article

Malaysia's 15th case was reported on 8th Feb 2020, so the date that is 2 weeks after this was 22nd Feb.

Based on the Oxford Uni index, Malaysia scored 19 on 22 Feb 2020 as per Chart 1.

Chart 1: Malaysia   (From Oxford Uni)

How did other countries perform on this stringency index based on 2 weeks after the 15th confirmed case?

• South Korea and Taiwan did better than Malaysia with scores of 31 each

• In the ASEAN countries, Indonesia, Vietnam, and Philippines did better than Malaysia

I am not sure that I believe the Indonesian and Philippines scores as the criteria is 2 weeks after the 15th confirmed case ie it is sensitive to the number of cases reported by each country.  I am not sure whether the number of cases is correct for these 2 countries. 

Countries	Date of 15th confirmed case	Stringency score on day 14 after 15th confirmed case
US	14/02/20	6
Australia	14/02/20	19
Germany	12/02/20	17
Korea	02/02/20	31
Taiwan	07/02/20	31
Indonesia	10/03/20	46
Singapore	31/01/20	25
Thailand	31/01/20	0
Philippines	10/03/20	100
Vietnam	11/02/20	47

Oxford Uni also tracked the performance over time so you can see from the Malaysian chart above that we improved on the score as time went by.  By Mac when we had gone into the MCO the score shot up from 19 in Feb to 73 in Mac.

So in comparing performance, we should not just look at a point in time.

I think we should also look at the time taken for Malaysia to ramp up its measures compared to the other ASEAN countries.  In this context as per Chart 2 below

• Vietnam ramped up first followed by Phillippines

• Malaysia was the 3rd Asian country to ramp up

• Singapore was the last to do so

Of course over time, most of the ASEAN countries' scores sort of “converged” as everyone adopted their respective stringent measures as can be seen from Chart 2 below.

Unfortunately, Malaysia's stringency score c/w its ASEAN neighbours is near the bottom in the months that mattered most ie April and May 2020.

Chart 2: ASEAN (From Oxford Uni)

But the interesting item is how Taiwan, Germany, Australia have currently come down from the peak as per Chart 3. 

• The US is still unchanged despite what we hear on the news

• South Korea came down and then seemed to re-introduce some stringent measures recently. 

Chart 3: Reference Countries  (From Oxford Uni)

When you look at Australia (35), Germany (50) scores as at 13 June, you can conclude that Malaysia at 64  has not opened up as aggressively as these 2 countries.

So what is your conclusion?  I think we were painfully slow and surely not the best in ASEAN.  

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PS: This blog is for me to better understand COVID 19 as this will impact my investments. If you are also into equities, follow me at i4value.asia.

Disclaimer:  I am not an epidemiologist, healthcare worker, pharmacist, or staff in the Ministry of Health, but rather is someone with a strong interest in numerical analysis.  The content is an attempt to understand what is happening in the battle against COVID 19 from a data-based perspective. The opinions expressed here are based on information extracted from readily available public sources but I do not warrant its completeness or accuracy and should not be relied on as such.