Measurement of Relative Efficiency Levels of Southeast Asian Countries in Dealing with the Covid-19 Pandemic Over One Year

ABSTRACT

Introduction: Handling the COVID-19 outbreak is one of the most novelties modern work is facing by many countries today. Massive outbreak needs countries efficacy and talent in creating new approaches. These approaches need to prevent the spread of the outbreak and increase the citizens' belief as the outbreak will damage the countries' functional capacity. Technical efficiency is used maximally to gain total control of the conditions. This study aims to measure the relative efficiency level of Southeast Asian countries in dealing with COVID-19 pandemic over one year. Methods: The relative efficiency level of the most successful countries in Southeast Asia in managing COVID-19 infection was determined using Frontier 4.1 through Stochastic Frontier Analysis (SFA) and Excel software. The technical efficiency of the SFA model is defined as the ratio of observed output to maximum feasible production. If the country's technical efficiency (TE) is greater than 80%, it is the most effective in Southeast Asia at managing COVID-19 infection, but if it is less than 80% or close to 0, it is inefficient. Results: This research aims at the COVID-19 epidemic in a Southeast Asian country, where the country with the highest technical efficiency score is the most efficient and indicates the country's ability to deal with the COVID-19 outbreak without any complications. Laos was ranked first (TE = 0.99901), with a technical efficiency score that was higher than that of most other Southeast Asian countries. Singapore comes in second position with a technical efficiency score of 0.99882. Brunei is in third place for COVID-19, with a technical efficiency score of 0.99870. Cambodia is in last place, with a score of 0.84675 for technical efficiency. Conclusion: Laos is the highest technical efficiency score among the southeast Asian countries. Various things that can lead to inefficiency include lack of awareness about standard operating procedures (SOP) among the causes of COVID-19 case infection in the workplace, and the community continues to increase. This condition may also be due to the lack of medication or vaccines to cure COVID-19. All communities around the world are expected to adopt standard operating procedures (SOP) such as wearing face masks, hand sanitizers, and social distance to curb the increasingly violent spread of COVID-19. © 2021 Tehran University of Medical Sciences.