In this webinar, Dr Arief Ramayandi, Dr Siwage Dharma Negara, Ms Sheena Valenzuela, Prof Ronald U. Mendoza and Dr Nguyen Thang examines the pandemic responses in countries around the region, with a spotlight on Indonesia, Philippines and Vietnam, three of the most populous countries in ASEAN.
REGIONAL ECONOMIC STUDIES PROGRAMME WEBINAR
Tuesday, 9 November 2021 – ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute hosted a webinar on “Managing and Mismanaging the Pandemic in Indonesia, Philippines and Vietnam: Approaches and Consequences”, jointly delivered by Dr Siwage Dharma Negara, Senior Fellow at the Institute for Southeast Asian Studies (ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute), Ms Sheena Valenzula, Research Associate and Program Coordinator at the Ateneo Policy Centre, Ateneo School of Government and Dr Nguyen Thang, the First Vice-Chairman of the Economic and Social Advisory Committee of the Vietnam Academy of Social Sciences (VASS). They were joined by Dr Arief Ramayandi, Principal Economist in the Economic Research and Regional Cooperation Department of the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and Dr Ronald U. Mendoza, Dean and Professor of Economics at the Ateneo School of Government.
This webinar is supported by Konrad Adenauer Stiftung.
Indonesia: Dr Negara’s presentation was on Indonesia’s COVID-19 mobility restrictions. He started off with an overview of the COVID-19 situation in Indonesia where daily infections have declined since its peak in mid-July. As of October, 27% of the population are fully vaccinated while 48% have received one dose. He then went on to describe the six different stages of mobility restrictions implemented since April 2020 to October 2021. Dr Negara provided a comparison between the mobility restrictions and daily infections across the seven Indonesian cities to determine whether the former had an effect on the latter. Next, he discussed the case study he carried out in Bali and Jakarta’s economy to assess the impact of the pandemic. Tax revenue fell by 55% in Jakarta and since the city contributes 17% to the national GDP, the overall economy contracted by -2.4% in 2020. Bali’s tourism contributes to 60% of the GDP and as a result of the pandemic, economic growth plummeted to -9.3%.
Dr Negara found that higher mobility led to higher COVID-19 cases and hence, lockdowns. The degree of lockdown stringency varied overtime but has remained unchanged since March 2021. He noted that lockdown stringencies have been more effective in 2020 than 2021. Studies suggest lockdowns have a significant adverse impact on household income. The government mostly opted for more relaxed restrictions than a strict lockdown policy. Since changes in mobility restriction policies are driven by infection cases, there were higher chances of lockdowns in places where mobility was higher. Moreover, the level of stringency was sometimes at odds with changes in the stages of restrictions, raising questions about consistency and effectiveness of such restrictions. Dr Negara ended his presentation with a summary of the effects mobility restrictions have on health and economic in Indonesia which worked relatively well in managing the pandemic during the 1st and 2nd waves. However, vaccinations seem to play a greater role in handling the “Delta” variant. In addition, while stock market (investors) seemed to have adjusted by 2021, real production and activities continue to suffer whenever a new wave of infection hits.
Philippines: Next, Ms Valenzula shared her presentation on the Philippines, starting with an overview of the COVID-19 situation in the Philippines. There are 4,000 new infections reported daily and there has been a total of 2,700,00 infections and 42,000 deaths in the country. According to the COVID-19 Stringency Index, the Philippines is placed 12th out of 185 countries with the most stringent government response. It also holds one of the longest school closures. Whenever there seemed to be a threat of surge in COVID-19 cases, the government implemented a lockdown. As a result, Manila has been in four lockdowns to date. This has resulted in a big cost on the economy with increased government debt and five straight quarters of contraction in GDP.
Next, Ms Valenzula dived into the causes of on-again, off-again lockdowns. The first reason is due to the lack of timely vaccination. Case in point, the government only started vaccinating health workers in March 2020 due to supply shortages. Another challenge the government is facing is vaccine hesitancy. According to a survey, six out of ten Filipinos do not want to get vaccinated. The second reason is due to a weak and exclusive healthcare system. For an effective containment strategy, the health care system must be strong and able to absorb the possible surging cases. However, the system was not strengthened during the lockdowns. The situation was exacerbated when many healthcare workers resigned due to unpaid pandemic-related benefits. Additionally, health-seeking behavior among Filipinos have been declining due to the fear of expensive fees: those who may be infected do not visit hospitals or testing centers, resulting in higher risks of community infections. As such, more affordable healthcare is required to curb the spread of the illness. Moreover, further pressure was added onto the flailing healthcare system when healthcare workers demanded the resignation of the Health Secretary due to corruption allegations. On top of the health and economic challenges that the Philippines is facing is the long-standing challenge on leadership and governance – a Senate investigation into the procurement of medical supplies which is believed to be overpriced is being carried out. The third reason for these lockdowns is the lack of efficient contact tracing and inadequate COVID-19 testing. Given all these reasons, Ms Valenzula suggested a need for evidence-based responses: detailed and disaggregated data to know which areas need lockdowns and a re-examination of whether testing information is being used effectively to inform a containment strategy.
Besides the immediate health and economic challenges, the on-again, off-again lockdowns have resulted in a long-term human development crisis. The lockdowns cost the Philippines around PhP18 billion in lost output per day due to reduced consumption and investments, reduced productivity and loss in future wages. The Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) forecasted that up to ten million workers will lose their jobs and SWS released a recent report that an additional five million families experienced hunger due to the pandemic. Finally, the Philippine Institute for Development Studies (PIDS) also released a study that forecasted that up to 1.5 million Filipinos may slide back into poverty due to the COVID-19 pandemic. As for education, millions of students are unable to transition to online education. Ms Valenzula stressed the need to strengthen health systems and test-trace-treat systems. She opined that even with economic stimulus, recovery will be difficult due to lingering uncertainty in the health sector. Without effective containment strategies, the country will likely be stuck in on-again, off-again lockdowns.
Vietnam: Dr Thang began his presentation on Vietnam with an overview of the spread of the virus in the country. To date, there has been four waves of infection that resulted in four lockdowns – national, city, provincial and regional. The Vietnamese government initially pursued a strategy of zero infection, deploying a rigorous system of contact tracing once an individual was identified as positive. However, this strategy ceased to work during the 4th wave with the Delta variant. Moreover, the vaccination campaign got off to a slow start due to a supply shortage. The resultant spread of the virus led to more lockdowns. Dr Thang identified two impacts of implementing these lockdowns. Firstly, there’s a disruption of activities- many factories and offices were closed and the population largely stayed at home. Secondly, economic growth rate was at an all-time low as retail sales plummeted due to social distancing. The temporary closure of businesses resulted in a continuous fall in manufacturing output. The complicated development of the COVID-19 epidemic has also negatively affected the labor situation wherein unemployment and underemployment rates increased the most since the first quarter of 2020. Additionally, Dr Thang highlighted several emerging issues: food supply distribution, mental health and the digital divide in education during lockdowns. Moreover, there seems to be rising disparities between certain working groups. The cost of financing the response for the pandemic has been a heavy burden on both central and local budgets and social health insurance. Dr Thang ended his presentation with a sharing of the key considerations Vietnam has for the shift in government response away from lockdowns to living safely with the virus: improving testing capacity, improved treatments, accelerated vaccination campaign and improved digital platforms and information flows.
After the three presentations on the respective countries, the speakers shared their perspectives and opinions on the topic on hand, as well as insights from cross-country comparisons. The webinar concluded with the speakers answering questions posed by the audience.
