The Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has caused a worldwide human resource crisis in the healthcare setting due to the continuous and overwhelming demand of the workforce. Failure in managing the human resource will negatively affect the clinical management, prevention, and control of the pandemic; while a well-planned human resource policy can ensure sustainable and sufficient skilful workers to meet the demand. This article presents policies that are recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO) and other significant studies in addressing the issues faced by many countries during this COVID-19 pandemic. As with all policies, there are various challenges in the implementation of policies related to COVID-19. Therefore, this article also discusses the challenges in the implementation of these policies. This article ends with the proposal for the way forward in human resource management during a pandemic, should another pandemic hit the world.

Big data analytics (BDA) in digital health is critical for gaining the knowledge needed to make decisions, with Asia at the forefront of utilising this technology for the Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). This review aims to study how BDA was incorporated into digital health in managing the COVID-19 pandemic in six selected Asian countries, discuss its advantages and barriers and recommend measures to improve its adoption. A narrative review was conducted. Online databases were searched to identify all relevant literature on the roles of BDA in digital health for COVID-19 preventive and control measures. The findings showed that these countries had used BDA for contact tracing, quarantine compliance, outbreak prediction, supply rationing, movement control, information update, and symptom monitoring. Compared to conventional approaches, BDA in digital health plays a more efficient role in preventing and controlling COVID-19. It may inspire other countries to adopt this technology in managing the pandemic.

Disaster risk reduction (DRR) plays essential roles in ensuring food security to avoid adverse social, economic and financial implications to the disaster victims. This article aims to review existing DRR strategies in food security during flood disasters and recommend strategies that can be adapted into policies in Malaysia according to the Sendai Framework. Sendai Framework provides comprehensive, globally recognized priority themes in DRR while highlighting governmental and stakeholders’ responsibility. A literature review was carried out by searching available published literatures from online databases and selected information used in this review is taken from articles, journals, reports, national reports, news, and thesis regarding the topic from November 2021 to January 2022. This review revealed that DRR strategies of food security during flood disasters in Malaysia lack one out of 14 work areas in four priorities in the Sendai Framework, which is the national-level risk and vulnerability assessment system and tools. This article proposed 19 recommendations to improve eight work areas across all four priority areas to enhance national food security during flood disasters.