Governance Capability of the Public Health System: A Comparative Analysis of the Control of COVID-19 in the Different Provinces of China

Yingfeng Fang, Fen Zhang, Chenyu Zhou and Ming Chen
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Fen Zhang: School of Economics and Management, Wuhan University, Wuhan 430072, China
Chenyu Zhou: School of Economics and Management, Wuhan University, Wuhan 430072, China
Ming Chen: School of Economics and Management, Wuhan University, Wuhan 430072, China

IJERPH, 2021, vol. 18, issue 8, 1-14

Abstract: At the beginning of 2020, the global outbreak of the novel coronavirus COVID-19 posed a huge challenge to the governance capabilities of public health in various countries. In this paper, the SEIR model is used to fit the number of confirmed cases in each province in China, and the reduction rate of the basic reproduction number is used to measure the actual score of the control effect of COVID-19. The potential capacity of prevention and control of epidemics, in theory, is constructed, and we use the difference between theoretical ability and actual score to measure the ability of governance of public health. We found that there were significant differences between actual effect and theoretical ability in various regions, and governance capabilities were an important reason leading to this difference, which was not consistent with the level of economic development. The balance of multiple objectives, the guiding ideology of emphasizing medical treatment over prevention, the fragmentation of the public health system, and the insufficiency of prevention and control ability in primary public health systems seriously affected the government’s ability to respond to public health emergencies.

Keywords: public health; epidemic control; SEIR model; governance capability (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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