ASEAN's impact has been uneven. The organisation is an effective platform for cooperation between its member states and the wider Indo-Pacific region, but its goal of promoting peaceful cooperation is undermined by growing geopolitical tensions, especially in the South China Sea. There has been significant economic integration, even if the goal of an EU-style single market is a long way off. On the other hand, south-east Asians still perceive ASEAN as an elite project with little impact on their daily lives.

Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)

In late December 2019, a series of acute atypical respiratory disease occurred in Wuhan, China, which rapidly spread to other areas worldwide. It was soon discovered that a novel coronavirus was responsible, named the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2, 2019-nCoV). The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the population’s health is unprecedented in recent years and the impact on a social level even more so. The COVID-19 pandemic is the most large-scale pandemic on earth this century, and the impact in all life sectors is devasting and directly affected human activity in the first wave. The impact on the economy, social care systems, and human relationships is causing an unprecedented global crisis. SARS-CoV-2 has a strong direct acute impact on population health, not only at the physiological level but also at the psychological level for those who suffer it, those close to them, and the general population, who suffer from the social consequences of the pandemic. In this line, the economic recession increased, even more, the social imbalance and inequity, hitting the most vulnerable families, and creating a difficult context for public institutions to address. We are facing one of the greatest challenges of social intervention, which requires fast, effective, and well-coordinated responses from public institutions, the private sector, and non-governmental organizations to serve an increasingly hopeless population with increasingly urgent needs. Long-term legislation is necessary to reduce the vulnerability of the less fortunate, as well as to analyze the societal response to improve the social organization management of available resources. Therefore, in this scoping review, a consensus and critical review were performed using both primary sources, such as scientific articles, and secondary ones, such as bibliographic indexes, web pages, and databases. The main search engines were PubMed, SciELO, and Google Scholar. The method was a narrative literature review of the available literature. The aim was to assess the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on population health, where the possible interventions at the health level are discussed, the impact in economic and social areas, and the government and health systems interventions in the pandemic, and finally, possible economic models for the recovery of the crisis are proposed.

https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/11/6314/pdf

The Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Social, Health, and Economy

ABSTRACT Coronavirus Disease-2019 (COVID-19) has spread globally with catastrophic damages to the public health, social and economy since the beginning of the outbreak. In 2020, Southeast Asia proved that it could prevent the worst effects of a pandemic through the closure of activities and borders and movement restriction, as well as social distancing. Nevertheless, with the occurrence of the common variants of concern (VOCs), especially Alpha (B.1.1.7), Beta (B.1.351), Delta (B.1.617.2), Southeast Asia is facing a significant increase in the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infections. Now, the area also has the threats of the spreading out of the dangerous variant – Omicron (B.1.1.529) from other close countries or regions. COVID-19 countermeasures such as closures and social distancing seem to be insufficient. Moreover, Southeast Asia is being held back by a shortage of vaccines and other medical resources. This work focuses on describing the COVID-19 situation, the virus variants, and the coverage of COVID-19 vaccination in the area. We also provide perspectives on the COVID-19 vaccine distribution, protecting the economic capitals, developing the green zone, and the importance of finding more vaccine supplies in Southeast Asia.

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/21655979.2022.2031417?needAccess=true

COVID-19 in Southeast Asia: current status and perspectives

The unanticipated coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has hit global business heavily, disrupting the management of human resources across numerous industries. More than 500 articles (indexed in Scopus and the Web of Science) on the impact of the COVID-19 outbreak on emerging human resources issues and related practices were published from 1 January 2020 to 31 January 2021. In this study, we conduct a systematic literature review on emerging studies in the business and management field to explore what the emerging human resource issues are during the COVID-19 pandemic and propose related practices to solve these issues. The analysis of the published literature identifies nine main human resource issues across 13 industries. The findings of this study suggest that COVID-19 has enormous impact on conventional human resource management and requires the theoretical and empirical attention of researchers. The propositions nominate related human resource practices to deal with emerging human resources issues and identify several research venues for future studies in this field.

https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/239644/1/1762992523.pdf

Risk Management: Exploring Emerging Human Resource Issues during the COVID-19 Pandemic

The current Covid-19 pandemic has impacted tourism industry the hardest and has steered a total standstill in the multibillion industry, causing economic crisis globally. This paper attempts to ass...

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/23311886.2021.1950290

Agritourism resilience against Covid-19: Impacts and management strategies

Scholars and policy-makers agree that cross-border and multi-sector cooperation are essential components of coordinated efforts to contain the spread of COVID-19 infections. This paper examines the responses of ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nation) member countries to the COVID-19 pandemic, including the limits of regional cooperation. ASEAN has pre-existing cooperative frameworks in place, including regional health security measures, which, at least theoretically, could assist the region's efforts to formulate cooperative responses to containing a global pandemic. With its overarching “One Vision, One Identity, One Community”, ASEAN cooperation has extended to include region-wide disaster responses, framed as “One Asean, One Response”. Using content analysis, this paper examines media statements and policies from ASEAN member states and the ASEAN Secretariat to assess the collective response to COVID-19 during the period from January to August 2020. By identifying gaps and opportunities in government responses to COVID-19 as the virus spread throughout Southeast Asia, this paper provides new insights as well as recommendations for the future.

/pdf/covid-19-and-asean-responses-comparative-policy-analysis-3sc42i78np.pdf

COVID-19 and ASEAN responses: Comparative policy analysis

The World Health Organisation (WHO) announced the new coronavirus disease (COVID-19) it as a pandemic on March 11th, 2020. The pandemic has brought havoc globally as more than 190 countries and territories are affected as of 30 April 2030. The crisis suggests that no country can deal with the pandemic alone. International cooperation including regional cooperation is essential for any country to survive. We are particularly interested in Association of South East Asian Nation (ASEAN) cooperation and performance under COVID-19 because it has been one of the regions where regional cooperation on health security has been functioning based on lessons from SARS 2003 and H1N1 2009. The “One Vision, One Identity, One Community” of ASEAN has merits under COVID-19 response but remains invisible. The method encompasses analysis of published materials issued by and accessible from the ASEAN website, complemented with analysis for media articles including social media, supported by published academic journal articles. All of the authors have expertise on ASEAN policies in the field of health, disasters, and regional policy and planning. Some authors have also worked from various international organisations working on issues related to the ASEAN region.

This paper aims to document and analyse how ASEAN member states respond to COVID-19. It asks how to cooperate under the One-ASEAN-One Response framework. This paper also compares the 10 member states’ policy responses from January to April 2020. We utilise the framework of policy sciences to analyse the responses. We found that the early regional response was slow and lack of unity (January - February 2020). Extensive early measures taken by each member state are the key to the success to curb the spread of the virus. Although, during March and April 2020, ASEAN has reconvened and utilised its existing health regional mechanism to try to have a coherent response to the impacts. Strengthening future collaboration should be implemented by recognizing that there is a more coherent, multi sectoral, multi stakeholders and whole-of-ASEAN Community approach in ensuring ASEAN’s timely and effective response to the pandemic.

/pdf/the-asean-s-responses-to-covid-19-a-policy-sciences-analysis-1jxuqxlrxt.pdf

The ASEAN’s Responses to COVID-19: A Policy Sciences Analysis

Background Health education through music video plays a vital role in raising a person's knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors positively connected to health during COVID-19 pandemic. Objective This study aimed to estimate the prevalence of COVID-19-related music-video-watching and examine associated factors among the Vietnamese population. Methods A cross-sectional study in Vietnam was conducted in February 2021 via the Internet. Results Among 658 participants, the prevalence of COVID-19-related music-video-watching was 89.1% among people. In the multivariable regression models, significant factors for COVID-19-related music-video-watching were living area, types of housemate, age groups, and current occupation. Conclusions Lessons on health education to fight against the COVID-19 pandemic in Vietnam could be useful for similar settings in the world.

Nguyen Thi Ngoc Phuong

Papers

COVID-19 and ASEAN responses: Comparative policy analysis

The ASEAN’s Responses to COVID-19: A Policy Sciences Analysis

COVID-19-related music-video-watching among the Vietnamese population: lessons on health education