Wuhan

How the Covid-19 Outbreak in China Spiraled Out of Control

Bibliographic Data

ID19972810
AuthorsDali L Yang (William C. Reavis Professor of Political Science, The University of Chicago, corresponding author)
Year2024
Publication date2024-03-01
Open AccessNo
TypeBOOK
VenueWuhan (SOURCE_BOOK)
PublisherOxford University PressNew York (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1093/oso/9780197756263.001.0001
OpenAlexW4401228680
Open LibraryOL51054268M
ISBN9780197756263
LanguageEN
Citations received12

Dali L. Yang’s Wuhan offers a penetrating study of China’s management of the COVID-19 outbreak in Wuhan, a momentous event that has reverberated globally as the most severe pandemic in a century. Yang’s work sheds light on the advantage Chinese health decision makers had, including access to the novel coronavirus’s genomic sequences from several laboratories, as early as the end of December 2019. At this time an emergency action program was initiated to combat the burgeoning outbreak in Wuhan. Regrettably, the severity of the outbreak was grossly underestimated, leading to the adoption of measures that failed to effectively contain the virus. It was only in response to urgent warnings from sources outside Wuhan that national health authorities were spurred to take more decisive action, culminating in the Wuhan lockdown. Wuhan delves into the political, bureaucratic, and cognitive impediments that stymied the flow of crucial information, cultivated an atmosphere of organized silence, and facilitated the uncontrolled escalation of the outbreak in the weeks preceding the lockdown. The book highlights the detrimental effects of fragmented authoritarianism within the Chinese party-state and the strategic leadership weaknesses evident during the outbreak’s early stages. Moreover, it offers fresh insights into the formidable political, organizational, and health-related challenges involved in implementing the mega-lockdown. By examining the crisis’s progression, Wuhan allows readers to evaluate whether and how much of the COVID-19 pandemic could have been prevented. It emphasizes the necessity of transparency, adaptability to emerging information, and candid risk communication during public health crises

Political science · Chinese history and philosophy · Public health

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