Community-Based Monitoring in the New Normal: A Strategy for Tackling the COVID-19 Pandemic in Malaysia

In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic severely impacted the global public health system and led to many deaths worldwide. COVID-19 is highly contagious and can be spread by symptomatic or asymptomatic individuals. As such, determining the risk of infection within a community is difficult. To mitigate the risk of the spread of COVID-19, the government of Malaysia implemented seven phases of the movement control order (MCO) from 18 March to 31 December 2020. However, the socioeconomic cost was substantial despite the effectiveness of the MCO in bringing down cases of infection. As noted by the Prime Minister of Malaysia, the final criterion that should be met is community empowerment. In other words, community-based mitigation measures through which communities unite to contain the pandemic are essential before the completion of the vaccination program. As a measure for controlling the pandemic, mitigation strategies in the new normal should be feasible, practical, and acceptable to communities. In this paper, we present a deliberation of a set of community-based monitoring criteria to ensure health and well-being in communities, such as efficacy, technicality, feedback, and sustainability. The proposed criteria will be instrumental in developing community-based monitoring initiatives to achieve the desired goals in coping with the pandemic as well as in empowering communities to be part of the governance process.