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Great thread by @yatespj on Myanmar national COVID contingency plan, which appears to have only the most shallow understanding of how anything works in #Myanmar. Dead giveaway: calling GAD "Government Administration Dept" & tasking "senators" to serve on local COVID committees. https://twitter.com/yatespj/status/1248121331117260800
(GAD is General Administration Department, and there is no such thing as a "senator" in Myanmar".) I assume the lead UN agency -- @WHO -- provided the "technical assistance" to produce this document. (Here's why I assume this https://bit.ly/2UTyrfm ).
If ever there was a time for global governance to show its relevance, a global pandemic is it. @WHO -- what have you done for Myanmar? To date, it seems to be this contingency plan and strategic communications like this dashboard: https://bit.ly/3c1Wgra
In low income countries , the consensus is to do a LOT of testing, slam the population with health education and take all assistance possible from appropriate donors to build up the resilience of the frontline healthcare workforce. https://bit.ly/2xXRQmC
Lockdowns are a bad idea in low income countries with more than 60 percent of the workforce in the informal sector. #Myanmar had 83 percent of the labour force in the informal sector, with no protections at all, according the World Bank in June 2019. https://bit.ly/39RXdB3
Nonetheless, it remains possible COVID-19 will not spread in Myanmar (see Dr. Frank Smithuis https://bit.ly/2JU5vxH ). Dr. Frank really knows Myanmar, and I really hope he is right.
Let's say Dr. Frank is right and Myanmar slides through the pandemic relatively untouched physically. Why, then, isn't the gov't testing more than 800 people (over the last six weeks)? Gov't could calm everyone's nerves, or properly put them on alert, by widespread testing.
This contingency plan won't save any lives at all, as @yatespj indicates, if you read between his lines. #Myanmar is a country of immense inequalities, ethnic and religious divisions, and limited state capacity or will to help the vulnerable.
The vulnerable in #Myanmar are numerous. IDPs? Peri-urban slum dwellers? Millions of migrants? Prisoners? In all likelihood, 10-20 million people are living on the edge of utterly devastating impoverishment, which feels like it's encroaching by the moment. https://bit.ly/34yVTlD
Beyond the excellent thread by @yatespj, please check out the data being collect by @TheAnandaMM on more than 60,000 people in random types of "quarantine" in Myanmar.
