Japanese Twitter Is In Awe Of Malaysia's COVID-19 Guidelines
The World Health Organisation (WHO) has also just praised Malaysia for its swift handling of the COVID-19 outbreak.
By May Vin Ang — 19 Feb 2020, 06:25 PM
Malaysia's well-planned handling of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak has recently become a topic of envy among Japanese Twitter users
A Japanese netizen's retweet of the Ministry of Human Resources' (MOHR) guideline to prevent the spread of infection in the country has gone viral.
The guideline that was shared was issued by the government for Malaysian employers to prevent conflict when dealing with employees returning from coronavirus-affected countries such as China, Thailand, Japan, Hong Kong, and Singapore.
"This is Malaysia's MOHR's new coronavirus response manual," read the viral tweet
It then listed the steps recommended by the ministry for employers in Malaysia to follow:
- An employee's medical inspections should be paid by the company,
- Paid sick leave should be given to employees under self-quarantine,
- Full salary should be given to employees under quarantined orders,
- Employees not issued a quarantine order should not be prevented from coming to work, that said, employees can instruct an employee to take paid sick leave if found unwell, and
- Employers cannot force employees to use their annual leave or unpaid leave during quarantine.
The post has gotten over 18,000 retweets and 20,000 likes, with Malaysia winning praise from thousands of Japanese netizens
"Enviable! The Japanese government is completely incompetent," compared a Twitter user.
"This is the way a nation shows how much they want to stop the public from being infected," said a netizen.
Another said, "In order to protect lives, people who are possibly infected carry out self-quarantine. Compare Japan to Malaysia's response, which is the right country?"
A thread on Reddit reveals the probable reasons why the Japanese are in such admiration of Malaysia's actions
"Because things are different in Japan," said a Reddit user, explaining that the Japanese people feel that their government is not doing enough to handle the situation, such as not cancelling big public events.
Furthermore, employees in Japan who want to self-quarantine would have to bear the expenses and leaves needed on their own.
Meanwhile another user explained why Malaysia is exceptional at dealing with the current outbreak.
He said, "It started with the Nipah outbreak in 1999. Since then the public health system has had to deal with Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS), H5N1, and now COVID-19."
"We've had a lot of practice and that's why we are very good at outbreak management."
The World Health Organisation (WHO) has also praised Malaysia for its swift handling of the COVID-19 cases in the country
The WHO has, once again, commended Malaysia's preparedness and ability to address the infection, said Health Minister Datuk Seri Dr Dzulkefly Ahmad after a teleconference with WHO's director general Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus yesterday, 18 February.
According to The Star, he said that WHO held Malaysia in high regard in terms of public health.
