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One Pandemic, Two Solutions: Comparing the U.S.-China Response and Health Priorities to COVID-19 from the Perspective
Shupeng Lyu1, Chen Qian1, Aaron McIntyre1
1School of Public Policy and Administration, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an 710049, China.
Insights
COVID-19 pandemic control varied globally. The US relied on medical interventions due to limited social control, while China utilized both medical and stringent social controls, like "zeroing" policies, to rapidly curb virus spread.
Area of Science:
- Public Health
- Epidemiology
- Comparative Policy Analysis
Background:
- The COVID-19 pandemic, a global health crisis since 1918, necessitated multifaceted control strategies.
- Effective pandemic response involves balancing medical interventions with social control measures.
Purpose of the Study:
- To analyze and compare COVID-19 control strategies in the United States and China.
- To examine how national systems influence the implementation of medical versus social control in pandemics.
Main Methods:
- Comparative analysis of national COVID-19 response strategies.
- Examination of the role of political systems, economic structures, and cultural values in shaping control measures.
- Analysis of the "medical control" and "social control" dimensions.
Main Results:
- US strategy limited by socio-political factors, leading to a primary reliance on medical control and a "pulsed-style" approach.
- China's system enabled stringent, widespread social and medical controls, including "zeroing" policies, for rapid virus containment.
- China's shift to "coexisting" with Omicron in late 2022 averted mass deaths, contrasting with higher US excess mortality.
Conclusions:
- National context significantly dictates pandemic control effectiveness and strategy.
- China's integrated medical and social control approach proved more effective in early pandemic containment than the US's predominantly medical approach.
- The study highlights the trade-offs between public health priorities and socio-political realities in pandemic management.
Abstract:
After three years of global rampage, the COVID-19 epidemic, the most serious infectious disease to occur worldwide since the 1918 influenza pandemic, is nearing its end. From the global experience, medical control and social control are the two main dimensions in the prevention and control of COVID-19. From the perspective of "two types of control", namely medical control and social control, this paper finds that the political system, economic structure, and cultural values of the United States greatly limit the government's ability to impose social control, forcing it to adopt medical control to fight the virus in a single dimension. In contrast, China's political system, economic structure, and cultural values allow its government to adopt stringent, extensive, and frequent social control, as well as medical control to fight the virus. This approach departs from the traditional pathway of fighting the epidemic, i.e., "infection-treatment-immunization", thereby outpacing the evolution of the virus and controlling its spread more rapidly. This finding helps explain why the Chinese government adopted a strict "zeroing" and "dynamic zeroing" policy during the first three years, at the cost of enormous economic, social, and even political legitimacy. It was not until late 2022, when the Omicron variant with the waning virulence became prevalent, that China chose to "coexist" with the virus, thus avoiding a massive epidemic-related death. While the United States adopted a pulsed-style strategy at the beginning of the epidemic, i.e., "relaxation-suppression-relaxation-suppression", and began to "coexist" with the virus in just one year, resulting in a large number of excess deaths associated with the epidemic. The study contributes to explaining the difference in the interplay between public health priorities and COVID-19 response strategies in China and the United States, based on the specific public health context and the perspective of "medical control" and "social control".
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