Thousands of confirmed cases of COVID-19 have been reported across Southeast Asia, with the highest levels, thus far, occurring in Malaysia, the Philippines and Indonesia.
The disease is virtually guaranteed to continue to spread in the region, despite widespread efforts to prevent it.Responding to the situation in Southeast Asia will mean relying on high levels of trust in medical professions that a Wellcome Global Monitor survey shows existed before the pandemic, while building trust in health advice from the government, which is relatively low in a number of countries, including Thailand and Vietnam.Overall, a median of 87% of adults in Southeast Asia surveyed in 2018 said they trust doctors and nurses in their country "a lot" or "some,"