MALAYSIA’S large income inequality gap and political uncertainties have caused the lower income group to suffer more than the rest from the Covid-19 epidemic, renowned scientist Prof Dr Adeeba Kamarulzaman said today. 

She said the group that is hit badly is from the poor and marginalised segments of society. 

“It is very clear that those in the lower socioeconomic strata have been more affected – migrant workers, those living in high-density PPR flats, refugees and the urban poor, for example,” said the Universiti Malaya Faculty of Medicine dean at a webinar organised by Sunway University. 

She also said the epidemic situation in the country coincided with a period of political turmoil, which resulted in the trust in government to be severely eroded. 

Citing research, she said Covid-19 struck most ferociously in countries ridden with political division and social conflict.

“We are now coming to a conclusion that the more salient features that distinguish pandemic severity are factors like economic equality and social trust,” she said. 

Adeeba said as an example, in terms of the number of excess deaths across countries during the pandemic, the most severely affected nations included Peru, Bolivia, South Africa and Brazil, which are all middle-income countries caught in political turmoil with weak social institutions. 

“Research has also shown that political polarisation, social capital, trust in government and income inequality are measures for successful pandemic response,” she said. 

Malaysia has been hit with a series of political conundrum over the last two years since the collapse of the Pakatan Harapan government and replaced by Perikatan Nasional (PN) in the Sheraton Move. 

Bersatu, led by Muhyiddin Yassin, joined forces with Umno and PAS, alongside the pro-Azmin Ali faction from PKR, to form the new government. 

PN, however, did not stay long as Muhyiddin was brought down after losing the support from members of Parliament. 

Apart from that, the PN administration also failed to control its ministers from breaching Covid-19 standard operating procedures, with several of them caught on social media performing activities that were barred. 

Meanwhile, the chief epidemiologist from the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention Prof Dr Wu Zunyou said strong leadership in the Chinese government has played a vital role in containing the coronavirus there.

He said coordination of government sectors and society is also a key factor in eliminating the virus. 

“We adopted the elimination-and-containment approach rather than mitigation of suppression. There were four methods used by the Chinese government during the outbreak,” he said. 

“Strong leadership, mobilisation of communities, coordination between government sectors and the community and full implementation of government strategies made us successful.”  

As of September 13, there were 95,248 confirmed Covid-19 cases in China with 4,636 deaths reported.

Malaysia, on the other hand, recorded 1.9 million cases with 16,073 deaths since the start of the epidemic early last year. – September 13, 2021.