Dataset Information

COVID-19 pandemic in China: Context, experience and lessons.

ABSTRACT: The first cluster of COVID-19 cases was reported in Wuhan, China on December 29th, 2019. Since then, China has experienced a pandemic of COVID-19. OBJECTIVE:This study aims to present the context in which the pandemic has evolved, the government's response and the pandemic's impact on public health and national economy. METHODS:A review was conducted to collect relevant data from press releases and government reports. RESULTS:COVID-19 poses a major public health threat on China with a cumulative number of cases over 89,000 (data cut-off date: August 9th, 2020). Between January and February 2020, China implemented a series of escalating policies (including a stringent nation-wide lockdown) to combat the pandemic. Therefore, it has been to a large extent limited to the Wuhan region. Social media such as WeChat and SinaWeibo played a crucial role in disseminating government information and public campaigns during the pandemic. Technologies were adopted to enable contact tracing and population travel patterns. The Chinese central government mobilized healthcare resources including healthcare personnel and medical materials to Wuhan in a highly effective way. Both central and regional governments launched financial policies to stimulate the economy, including special loans, tax extension, reduction or waiver. Nevertheless, the economy in China was significantly impacted especially during the lockdown period. CONCLUSIONS:China has responded to the COVID-19 epidemic in a highly centralized and effective way. Balancing the needs to prevent a future pandemic and to boost economic recovery remains a challenge.

SUBMITTER: Xu W

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7451009 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

ACCESS DATA

Publications

COVID-19 pandemic in China: Context, experience and lessons.

Xu Weiwei W Wu Jing J Cao Lidan L

Health policy and technology 20200827 4

The first cluster of COVID-19 cases was reported in Wuhan, China on December 29th, 2019. Since then, China has experienced a pandemic of COVID-19.<h4>Objective</h4>This study aims to present the context in which the pandemic has evolved, the government's response and the pandemic's impact on public health and national economy.<h4>Methods</h4>A review was conducted to collect relevant data from press releases and government reports.<h4>Results</h4>COVID-19 poses a major public health threat on Ch ...[more]

PMID: 32874851

Similar Datasets

Project description:The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted the global society and human life profoundly. Many countries have launched COVID-19 mobile apps with a wide range in how these apps work. While it is hoped that these apps can assist in the fight against COVID-19, many are worried about user privacy. China implemented “health code” systems, which assigned neighborhoods and citizens a specific health code, meant to indicate their risk of having been exposed to COVID-19. The most widely used health code systems were hosted on the popular apps WeChat and Alipay, each with billions of users. Some experts argued that China's use of mobile applications was essential to its successful combat against COVID-19. Included in this study are a summary of mobile technology usage in China, a review of previous studies of mobile technology in healthcare, and a brief survey of some existing mobile applications for COVID-19 that were implemented. Also included are outcomes of interviews with healthcare and public safety experts and a public survey to understand how mobile applications were used in China's response to COVID-19. The interviews revealed four important themes: personal privacy, community involvement, government involvement, and situational specificity. It was found that a key concern was maintaining a balance between collecting and utilizing personal information, as well as protecting this information. In addition, close collaboration between local communities and the national government was essential. Mobile applications assisted in communication and coordination but did not replace the work of people such as delivery drivers and contact tracers. Our results also showed that there was room for improvement, especially accessibility for the elderly or those unfamiliar with technology. Similar results were obtained from our survey. It was interesting to find that the apps were mostly used for “accessing information on COVID-19.” In addition, respondents overwhelmingly identified “information” as the most valuable feature of COVID-19 apps. Both interview and survey results revealed the importance of providing information as a primary function of COVID-19 apps. Based on our findings we distilled four main lessons: mobile applications should assist in existing COVID-19 responses, inform users, protect users’ personal information, and adapt to users’ environments. We recommend that public health officials and app developers take these lessons into consideration when developing COVID-19 related mobile applications. In addition, we encourage researchers to utilize this report as a jumping off point for further research.

Dataset Information

COVID-19 pandemic in China: Context, experience and lessons.

Publications

COVID-19 pandemic in China: Context, experience and lessons.

Similar Datasets

OmicsDI is part of the ELIXIR infrastructure

Tweets