During a virtual ‘Special ASEAN Plus Three Summit on COVID-19’ held on 14 April, ASEAN leaders and the leaders of China, Japan and South Korea pledged to boost cooperation to curb the spread of the coronavirus and mitigate the pandemic’s devastating economic fallout.
In a declaration after the summit, ASEAN leaders emphasised a ‘whole-of-ASEAN community approach’ to the virus outbreak and called on member states to help each other. This includes keeping trade routes open to protect food supplies and medical equipment, the development of a post-pandemic recovery plan, and a proposed COVID-19 ASEAN Response Fund.
“If this can be achieved, it will be unprecedented, but equally what we are facing with COVID-19 is unprecedented,” said Dean, Professor Teo Yik Ying.
He added that as the pandemic comes under control, there should be coordinated easing of measures, such as travel restrictions. Countries that are in a similar, contained phase of the outbreak may form a bloc allowing for a greater degree of unrestricted travel to resume.
“This will require very transparent sharing of data on the current disease situation in each country, and I see this as one of the hardest to achieve — especially if the incentive to deceive is fundamentally economic,” said Prof Teo.
He added that whatever the difficulties, countries may come to realise that they will need to handle the COVID-19 situation for the next few years and that it would be ‘disadvantageous’ to mount a unilateral response.
A coordinated approach to fighting the COVID-19 pandemic in Southeast Asia is necessary, said Prof Teo, and it would be the “only way…that the world can have a chance to contain COVID-19 before a viable and safe vaccine becomes widely available [and] the only way for national economies to regain some level of normalcy”.
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(Header image from ASEAN: Joint Statement of the Special ASEAN Plus Three Summit on Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19))