Factors Influencing Asia-Pacific Countries’ Success Level in Curbing COVID-19: A Review Using a Social–Ecological System (SES) Framework

  1. Gabriel Hoh Teck Ling
  2. Nur Amiera binti Md Suhud
  3. Pau Chung Leng
  4. Lee Bak Yeo
  5. Chin Tiong Cheng
  6. Mohd Hamdan Haji Ahmad
  7. Ak Mohd Rafiq Ak Matusin

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Abstract

Little attention has been paid to the impacts of institutional–human–environment dimensions on the outcome of Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) abatement. Through the diagnostic social–ecological system (SES) framework, this review paper aimed to investigate what and how the multifaceted social, physical, and governance factors affected the success level of seven selected Asia-Pacific countries (namely, South Korea, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, Vietnam, Indonesia, and New Zealand) in combatting COVID-19. Drawing on statistical data from the Our World In Data website, we measured the COVID-19 severity or abatement success level of the countries on the basis of cumulative positive cases, average daily cases, and mortality rates for the period of 1 February 2020 to 30 June 2020. A qualitative content analysis using three codes, i.e., present (P), partially present (PP), and absent (A) for each SES attribute, as well as score calculation and rank ordering for government response effectiveness and the abatement success level across the countries, was undertaken. Not only did the standard coding process ensure data comparability but the data were deemed substantially reliable with Cohen’s kappa of 0.76. Among 13 attributes of the SES factors, high facility adequacy, comprehensive COVID-19 testing policies, strict lockdown measures, imposition of penalty, and the high trust level towards the government seemed to be significant in determining the COVID-19 severity in a country. The results show that Vietnam (ranked first) and New Zealand (ranked second), with a high presence of attributes/design principles contributing to high-level government stringency and health and containment indices, successfully controlled the virus, while Indonesia (ranked seventh) and Japan (ranked sixth), associated with the low presence of design principles, were deemed least successful. Two lessons can be drawn: (i) having high number of P for SES attributes does not always mean a panacea for the pandemic; however, it would be detrimental to a country if it lacked them severely, and (ii) some attributes (mostly from the governance factor) may carry higher weightage towards explaining the success level. This comparative study providing an overview of critical SES attributes in relation to COVID-19 offers novel policy insights, thus helping policymakers devise more strategic, coordinated measures, particularly for effective country preparedness and response in addressing the current and the future health crisis.

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  1. Version published to 10.3390/ijerph18041704
  2. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2020.11.17.20226407: (What is this?)

    Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.

    Table 1: Rigor

    Institutional Review Board Statementnot detected.
    Randomizationnot detected.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.
    Sex as a biological variablenot detected.

    Table 2: Resources

    Software and Algorithms
    SentencesResources
    Keywords such as ‘IAD-SES framework’, ‘Social-ecological system’, ‘COVID-19’ were used on Google Scholar to garner information.
    Google Scholar
    suggested: (Google Scholar, RRID:SCR_008878)

    Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).

    Results from LimitationRecognizer: An explicit section about the limitations of the techniques employed in this study was not found. We encourage authors to address study limitations.

    Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.

    Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.

    Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.

    Results from rtransparent:
    • Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • No protocol registration statement was detected.

    About SciScore

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  3. Version published to 10.1101/2020.11.17.20226407v1 on medRxiv