Covid-19 and the ‘Sarawak Way’: Surviving the pandemic?

Collin, Jerome (2023) Covid-19 and the ‘Sarawak Way’: Surviving the pandemic? In: Revisiting Covid-19 in Malaysia: Plight and Perseverance. Universiti Malaya Press, pp. 69-94. ISBN 978-967-488-277-8

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Abstract

Recent years have witnessed a heightened interest and research exploring the diverse impacts of COVID-19. Most research, however, tended to focus on public knowledge, practices, and attitudes towards the disease through analyses of cross-sectional survey data. Given the far-reaching effects of the virus on all aspects of daily life, much more needs to be known about it, particularly it’s implications on ordinary people in specific contexts or settings. This may be true for the people in the East Malaysian state of Sarawak, whose lives are adversely affected by the way the pandemic has been handled by the state government. This is the situation that this chapter sought to examine. More precisely, the chapter presents preliminary data from an exploratory study that investigated public knowledge, attitudes, and practices towards COVID-19 in Sarawak, which utilized the Knowledge, Attitudes, and Practices (KAP) survey design to gather and analyze the views of the people of Sarawak regarding what is known, what is thought, and what is done about the pandemic. The findings revealed that the participants held different opinions about COVID-19 given their diverse experiences during the current pandemic. Of particular significance were the participants’ differing views on the Sarawak state government’s response to the pandemic and how it had influenced their COVID-19 related opinions and experiences, as well as their sense of being a Sarawakian during a public health crisis. The chapter ends with a brief reflection on the importance of uncovering and acknowledging the diverse voices about experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic among people living in specific contexts or settings. Such an undertaking is timely and necessary in initiatives aimed at reviewing current approaches for dealing with this life-threatening disease.

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