Covid-19, Mortality and Inequality in Sarawak
Abstract
The first two males’ mortality in Malaysia due to COVID-19 announced by the authority on March 13, 2020. The fatalities became the major headlines on the media. Although many people discussed ‘actively’ about COVID-19, however conversations about deaths or funerals of victims from COVID-19 are quite ‘passive’ during the initial stage of the pandemic. When death occurs, biomedical examiners must examine death causation, mechanism and manners of death because COVID-19-related deaths are contagious. As a results, corpses are managed by authorised personnel with no or limited intervention from family or community members. These social responses to deaths from COVID-19 are paradox as funerals are traditionally communities’ responsibility. Due to surging cases of COVID-19, drastic measures are taken by the government globally to prevent the spread of COVID-19 and for social, economy and environment sustainability. This study aims to examine COVID-19 mortality patterns and its socio-cultural dimensions in Sarawak. Data are collected in the duration of 18 months from official sources and from participant observation. Data are analysed in several aspects including age, gender and co-morbidity. The findings show that mortality rates among males are significant higher compared to females. Most casualties occurred among age groups: 70-79, 60-69 and 50-59. The majority of cases have co-morbidity.
References
Anand, Ram. (2021). News Strait Times. https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/se-asia/malaysian-business-groups-urge-quicker-release-of-details-on-essential-sectors
Bagcchi, S. (2020). Stigma during the COVID-19 pandemic. The Lancet. Vol. 20 (7). Pp. 782.
Borneo Post Online. (2020). https://www.theborneopost.com/2020/03/17/kuching-pastor-first-covid-19-death-in-malaysia-says-state-disaster-committee/
Challier, B., Meslans, Y. and Viel, J.F., (2000). Deprived areas and attendance to screening of cervix uteri cancer in a French region. Cancer Causes & Control, 11(2), pp.157-162.
Douglas, J. A., Bostean, G., Miles Nash, A., John, E. B., Brown, L. M., Subica, A. M. (2022). Citizenship Matters: Non-Citizen COVID-19 Mortality Disparities in New York and Los Angeles. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. 19: 2-12.
Dong, E., Du, H., & Gardner, L. (2020). An interactive web-based dashboard to track COVID-19 in real time. The Lancet, Vol. 20: pp. 533-544.
Eisenhart, M., & Jurow, A. S. (2011). Teaching qualitative research. In N. K. Denzin & Y. S. Lincoln (Eds.), The Sage Handbook of Qualitative Research (pp. 699-714). NY: Sage.
Economic Planning Unit, Prime Minister’s Department. (2020). Household Income, Poverty and Household Expenditure, 1970-2019. Putrajaya: Equity Development Division, Economic Planning Unit.
Elengoe, A. (2020). COVID-19 Outbreak in Malaysia. Public Health and Research Perspectives,11 (3): pp. 93-100.
Harian Metro. (5 June 2021). https://www.hmetro.com.my/mutakhir/2021/06/714296/ada-peluang-adik-selamat-jika-terima-suntikan-vaksin-masing
The Straits Times. (30 May 2021). Malaysia's Covid-19 figures chart new grim records after deadliest week https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/se-asia/malaysian-business-groups-urge-quicker-release-of-details-on-essential-sectors
Khazanah Research Institute. (2020). Social Inequalities and Health in Malaysia: The State of Households 2020 Part III. Kuala Lumpur: Khazanah Research Institute. Licence: Creative Commons Attribution.
Koh, D. (2020). Migrant Workers and COVID-19. Occup Environ Med. 77: 634-636.
Lahelma, E., Martikainen, P., Laaksonen, M. and Aittomäki, A., (2004). Pathways Between Socioeconomic Determinants of Health. Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health, 58(4), pp.327-332.
Liau, J & Wan Ahmad, S. S. (2022). Social Interaction Amid COVID-19 and Responses to the Pandemic in Sarawak. Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities, Special Issue: Vol. 19. No.3 (2022). 162-178.
Lupton, D. (2020). Special section on ‘Sociology and the Coronavirus (COVID-19) Pandemic’ Health Sociology Review, pp. 1-2.
Manderson, L. & Levine, S. (2020). COVID-19, Risk, Fear, and Fall-out. Medical Anthropology. Vol. 39, No.5, p.p. 367-370.
Metcalf, P. (1982). Borneo Journey into Death: Berawan Eschatology from Its Rituals. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
MySejahtera. (2021). https://mysejahtera.malaysia.gov.my/intro/
National Crisis Preparedness and Responses Centre (CPRC) .(2020). Ministry of Health Malaysia. https://www.facebook.com/CPRCKebangsaanKKM/
Nettleton, S. (2015). The Sociology of Health and Illness. Oxford, United Kingdom: Polity Press.
News Strait Times. (17 March 2020). https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/se-asia/malaysia-reports-first-death-from-coronavirus.
Phelan, J.C., Link, B.G. and Tehranifar, P., (2010). Social conditions as fundamental causes of health inequalities: theory, evidence, and policy implications. Journal of Health and Social Behavior, 51(1_suppl), pp. S28-S40.
Sarawak Disaster Management Committee. (2020). https://sarawakdisastermc.com/
Sarawak Disaster Information. (2020) https://www.facebook.com/SarawakDisasterInfo
Sarawak Voice. Local Sarawak News. (12 June 2022). Migrant workers in Sarawak need to betested. https://sarawakvoice.com/2020/06/12/migrant-workers-in-sarawak-need-to-be-tested/
Seale, C. (2008). Mapping the field of medical sociology: A comparative analysis of journals. Sociology of Health and Illness, 30(5), 677-699.
The Free Dictionary. (2022). https://www.thefreedictionary.com/comorbidity
The StarOnline. (17 March 2020). https://www.thestar.com.my/news/nation/2020/03/17/pastor-from-sarawak-is-first-covid-19-fatality-in-malaysia
The SundayDaily. (30 May 2021). https://www.thesundaily.my/local/98-deaths-due-to-covid-19-a-dark-moment-for-malaysia-dr-noor-hisham-KH7911693
Wahab, A. (2020). The outbreak of COVID-19 in Malaysia: Pushing migrant workers at the margin. Social Sciences & Humanities Open. 2(1): 1-9.
Ward, P. R. (2020). Sociology of the COVID-19 pandemic: A commentary and research agenda for sociologists. Journal of Sociology, pp. 1-10.
Will, C. M. (2020). ‘And breathe…’? The sociology of health and illness in COVID-19 time. Sociology of Health & Illness, Vo. xx No. xx, pp. 1-5.
World (23 September 2020). COVID-19: Malaysia’s Sarawak state reels from foreign workers’ ban COVID-19. Vietnam. https://en.vietnamplus.vn/covid19-malaysias-sarawak-state-reels-from-foreign-workers-ban/187438.vnp
World Health Organization. (2021). Archived: WHO Timeline - COVID-19 https://www.who.int/news/item/27-04-2020-who-timeline---covid-19
World Health Organization. (2022). Preparing for pandemic. https://www.who.int/westernpacific/activities/preparing-for-pandemics
Yusof ANM, Muuti MZ, Ariffin LA, Tan MKM. (2020). Sharing Information on COVID-19: the ethical challenges in the Malaysian setting. Asian Bioethics Review, 12(3):1-13.
Copyright (c) 2023 Juna Liau; Sharifah Sophia binti Wan Ahmad; Siti Zanariah Ahmad Ishak
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
-
Copyright Transfer Statement for Journal
1) In signing this statement, the author(s) grant UNIMAS Publisher an exclusive license to publish their original research papers. The author(s) also grant UNIMAS Publisher permission to reproduce, recreate, translate, extract or summarize, and to distribute and display in any forms, formats, and media. The author(s) can reuse their papers in their future printed work without first requiring permission from UNIMAS Publisher, provided that the author(s) acknowledge and reference publication in the Journal.
2) For open access articles, the author(s) agree that their articles published under UNIMAS Publisher are distributed under the terms of the CC-BY-NC-SA (Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-Share Alike 4.0 International License) which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, for non-commercial purposes, provided the original work of the author(s) is properly cited.
3) For subscription articles, the author(s) agree that UNIMAS Publisher holds copyright, or an exclusive license to publish. Readers or users may view, download, print, and copy the content, for academic purposes, subject to the following conditions of use: (a) any reuse of materials is subject to permission from UNIMAS Publisher; (b) archived materials may only be used for academic research; (c) archived materials may not be used for commercial purposes, which include but not limited to monetary compensation by means of sale, resale, license, transfer of copyright, loan, etc.; and (d) archived materials may not be re-published in any part, either in print or online.
4) The author(s) is/are responsible to ensure his or her or their submitted work is original and does not infringe any existing copyright, trademark, patent, statutory right, or propriety right of others. Corresponding author(s) has (have) obtained permission from all co-authors prior to submission to the journal. Upon submission of the manuscript, the author(s) agree that no similar work has been or will be submitted or published elsewhere in any language. If submitted manuscript includes materials from others, the authors have obtained the permission from the copyright owners.
5) In signing this statement, the author(s) declare(s) that the researches in which they have conducted are in compliance with the current laws of the respective country and UNIMAS Journal Publication Ethics Policy. Any experimentation or research involving human or the use of animal samples must obtain approval from Human or Animal Ethics Committee in their respective institutions. The author(s) agree and understand that UNIMAS Publisher is not responsible for any compensational claims or failure caused by the author(s) in fulfilling the above-mentioned requirements. The author(s) must accept the responsibility for releasing their materials upon request by Chief Editor or UNIMAS Publisher.
6) The author(s) should have participated sufficiently in the work and ensured the appropriateness of the content of the article. The author(s) should also agree that he or she has no commercial attachments (e.g. patent or license arrangement, equity interest, consultancies, etc.) that might pose any conflict of interest with the submitted manuscript. The author(s) also agree to make any relevant materials and data available upon request by the editor or UNIMAS Publisher.
