The COVID-19 pandemic and Small Medium Enterprises (SMEs): a humble proposal / Intan Marzita Saidon

Covid-19 is a disease caused by SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus that emerged in December 2019 in Wuhan, China (WHO, 2020). In Malaysia, Covid-19 was first detected on 25th January 2020. It was traced back to the three Chinese nationals who had travelled to Malaysia via Singapore and previously had close contact with an infected person in Singapore (NST, 2020). Very soon after this case, on 4th February 2020, the first Malaysian with Covid-19 (Bernama, 2020) was confirmed. Since then, the virus has spread rapidly, not only in Malaysia but also in other countries. Due to the alarming levels of spread and severity of cases, in March 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) classified Covid-19 as a pandemic
(WHO, 2020). Like many other countries, the Malaysian government, with the help of the Ministry of Health as a key player, took immediate actions to curb the outbreak of this pandemic. They enforced health screening at all points of entry into the country and several hospitals were upgraded and equipped accordingly to enable them to treat Covid-19 cases. In March 2020, a more drastic measure was implemented to break the chain of this pandemic; a movement control order. However, the massive lockdowns and distancing actions enacted have immediately
scaled back both production and consumption and thus have hit hard on the country's economic status. Undoubtedly, the widespread Coronavirus disease continues to cause a direct global destructive impact on the economy (Goodell, 2020). The current economic turbulence and market uncertainty have badly affected financial performance and have caused various types of financial distress to all companies (KPMG, 2020), including SMEs (Raflis et al., 2020). The impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on SMEs has been immense and has distorted its function as the backbone of the economy.