Modeling Effectiveness of Partial Lockdown in Breaking Covid-19 Transmission Chain in Malaysia

The Coronavirus Disease 2019 (Covid-19) was first reported in Wuhan, China in early December 2019. On 11 March 2020, the World Health Organization declared Covid-19 a worldwide pandemic. Within six months, this highly infectious disease has rapidly spread over 200 countries in six continents, infecting more than 12 million and killing more than 560,000. Malaysia recorded as of July 12, a total of 8718 persons tested positive for Covid-19, with 122 deaths, and 8519 fully recovered, out of a population of 32.4 million. Unprecedented public health and socio-economic policy have been formulated by the Malaysian government to control the catastrophic pandemic spread and to resolve deep socio-economic disruptions and uncertainties. For Malaysia, a major pandemic control policy measure is the Movement Control Order (MCO) over a period of 24 weeks from March 18 to August 31, 2020. This MCO decision is facilitated by the use of epidemiology models such as SIR (Susceptible-Infected-Recovered) model. This MCO has resulted in major socio-economic disruptions and uncertainty. To overcome these immense economic disruptions and uncertainty, several major economic stimulation packages amounting to RM 250 billion, equivalent to 17% of Malaysia 2019 GDP, are formulated to revitalize Malaysia’s economy. Epidemiology models are widely used worldwide to formulate socially acceptable policy measures for breaking the infection transmission chain and for enhancing economic resilience. Since the start of Covid-19 outbreak in Malaysia, we use and continuously calibrate the existing SIR-based in-house FluSiM@USM model to examine the effectiveness of various intervention and mitigation measures in reducing the pandemic burden, the result of which is presented in this chapter. Our epidemic model analysis suggests that MCO has managed to effectively control the spread of Covid-19 by significantly reducing the effective reproduction number \(R_t\), from 3.5 to 0.2 over a period of 12 weeks. The constantly evolving knowledge of Covid-19 transmission dynamics requires regular data updates and model enhancements. Collaboration and communication between modelers and public health authorities are essential to formulating and supporting complex public health policy decision. This chapter highlights the effectiveness of MCO in controlling Covid-19 spread. It discusses major socio-economic disruptions and uncertainties caused by Covid-19 and MCO to the Malaysian and world economy. Guided by the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction developed by the United Nations, this chapter will focus the deliberation on the trade-offs between saving life and saving the economy.