Abstract
This chapter, by adopting the institutional perspective, will compare the COVID Monitoring Policies of six different countries and regions, namely, Mainland China, Hong Kong SAR of China, Japan, Singapore, the United Kingdom, and Denmark. Apart from the legitimacy perspective as core underpinning ideas, this chapter will also examine how institutional theory interplays with the government’s policymaking. After reviewing the government policies of these six countries and regions in the early stage of the COVID, three major types of anti-COVID-19 control policies are identified, that is, “Dynamic zero-clearing”, “Living with COVID” and Mitigation policies. The last part of the chapter then discusses on the linkages of choices of a specific policy with the welfare/health ideologies and regime, economic considerations, and the governance of the state as well as citizen participation and engagement.
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Notes
- 1.
The “four early measures” refer to as early as possible detection of infected cases and timely reporting of the outbreak to the government, as well as the isolation of infected persons at the early stage of infection and timely and targeted treatment, as proposed by the Chinese government in the “Chinese Action to Combat the New Coronary Pneumonia Epidemic”.
- 2.
The “social distancing measures” was first proposed in a press release by the Hong Kong SAR Government. It refers to the government’s efforts to reduce the number of people gathering and maintain social distancing through the Prevention and Control of Disease Regulation by limiting the number of people gathering, controlling meal times, and closing some entertainment venues.
- 3.
The “universal Community Testing Program” is an initiative of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, with the support of the Chinese government, to provide free testing for the new coronavirus to all citizens of Hong Kong in order to locate the infected and break the chain of transmission. The program is based on the community setting up sampling sites where people can go to their community sampling sites and wait for the test results at home.
- 4.
The “COVID-19 Vaccination Program” is a Hong Kong Government program covering all Hong Kong citizens. The program provides free vaccination against the new crown to protect public health and enable the community to resume normal operations gradually under the epidemic.
- 5.
It is found that Singapore have changed the policy of “Zero COVID” to “Living with COVID” as announced by their prime minister in in March 2022 in a nationally televised address titled “Into a New Phase”, such changes will be examined in the following chapter.
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Chan, K.T., Yi, X., Yang, X. (2023). Comparison of COVID-19 Control Policies and Public Health Regimes: The Institutionalism Perspective. In: Zhao, S.X.B., Chan, K.T., Çolakoğlu, S., Zhang, Q., Yan, B. (eds) Comparative Studies on Pandemic Control Policies and the Resilience of Society. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-9993-2_1
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