HIV/AIDS, SARS, and COVID-19: the trajectory of China’s pandemic responses and its changing politics in a contested world

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Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has revealed the contested politics of global health governance, though we still don’t know enough about the dynamics of domestic pandemic responses, or about the relationship between the politics of those responses and the politics of global health governance, both of which have changed significantly in recent decades. Focusing on three cases (HIV/AIDS, SARS, and COVID-19) of cross-border infectious diseases, this article explores the trajectory of China’s pandemic responses in the context of globalization. Attending to changing politics at domestic, international, and global levels, I argue that those responses have been a complex combination of China’s domestic politics (e.g., priorities, institutions, leadership, and timing), its international relations (especially with the US), and its engagements with global health governance. It is concluded that the increasing divergence of pandemic responses in a time of ubiquitous global health crisis demands urgent attention to the connections (including contestations) between domestic pandemic responses and the evolvement of global health governance from a broader perspective that considers changes in geopolitics.

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The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12992-023-01011-x.

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Response to the COVID-19 Epidemic: The Chinese Experience and Implications for Other Countries

Wei. Liu, Xiao-Guang Yue, Paul Tchounwou (2020)

The ongoing outbreak of the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) that occurred in China is rapidly spreading globally. China’s bond and strict containment measures have been proved (in practice) to significantly reduce the spread of the epidemic. This was obtained through the use of emergency control measures in the epidemic areas and the integration of resources from multiple systems, including business, community, technology, education, and transportation, across the country. In order to better understand how China has managed to reduce the public health and economic impacts of the COVID-19 epidemic, this editorial systematically reviews the specific measures for infection prevention and control of the disease. The best practices for COVID-19 eradication in China provide evidence-based strategies that could be replicated in other countries.

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Should HIV/AIDS Be Securitized? The Ethical Dilemmas of Linking HIV/AIDS and Security

Stefan Elbe (2006)

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The Dynamic COVID-Zero Strategy in China

Jue Liu, Min Liu, Wannian Liang (2022)

Since its outbreak in late 2019, coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has remained a global pandemic for nearly two years, which poses a huge test on the resilience of global public health system (1). After experiencing the large-scale epidemic in February 2020, China has entered a normalization stage of prevention and control since May 2020 (2). In response to the spread of the highly transmissible Delta variant, China adopted a new strategy called “Dynamic COVID-zero” from August 2021. This strategy is a summary of China’s experience in dealing with the spread of the Delta variant, considering how to control the epidemic at a higher level, at a lower cost, and in a shorter time (3). The most important purpose is to minimize the impact of the epidemic on the economy, society, production, and people’s normal lives, and to balance the prevention and control of this disease with socioeconomic stability. For instance, multiple outbreaks that occurred in Beijing were controlled in 2 maximum incubation periods (within 28 days) by this strategy (Figure 1). Figure 1 Outbreaks of COVID-19 in Beijing from December 2020 to December 2021. Abbreviation: COVID-19=coronavirus disease 2019. The “Dynamic COVID-zero” strategy is a transitional strategy to be adopted after a successful containment strategy, when the population immunity barrier is not yet established in the face of continued risk of foreign importation and high transmission of variants. This is different from the traditional containment and mitigation strategies (4). The core is to take effective and comprehensive measures to deal with localized COVID-19 cases precisely, to quickly cut off the transmission chain, and to end the epidemic in a timely manner (to “find one, end one”). In other words, China took precise prevention and control measures to quickly find, control, and cure infected people in each cluster outbreak within a specific geographic region to avoid affecting social and economic development in other regions, so as to achieve the maximum effect at the lowest cost. When there is a local recurrence, epidemic prevention staff will quickly find the close contacts using new technologies like big data analysis before the spread in the golden response time (within 24 hours after each outbreak). The aim is to find and control potential infected individuals in advance and try to end the outbreak within one or two maximum incubation periods (Figure 2). The formulation and implementation of this strategy requires extensive community involvement, government funding guarantees, application of new technology, motivating mechanisms, constraint mechanisms, and a resilient health system. Moreover, the scientific suggestions from multidisciplinary experts (for example, public health, clinical medicine, big data analysis, sociology, economics, management, and informatics discipline, etc.) are adopted in a timely manner to support decision making. Figure 2 The theoretical framework of dynamic COVID-zero strategy. With the rapid development of molecular biology technology and the wide use of big data analysis, nucleic acid screening can quickly find the source of infection hidden in the population (5). Strict quarantine and management measures can be subsequently implemented. Big data technology can quickly identify close contacts and risk groups, helping to implement precise prevention and control measures. Compared with severe acute respiratory syndromes (SARS) in 2003, the resilience of China’s health system has been improved, and new technologies such as nucleic acid testing and big data analysis have effectively ensured the implementation of the “Dynamic COVID-zero” strategy. “Dynamic COVID-zero” strategy sums up China’s experience in dealing with Delta, Omicron, and other variants, which has advantages in reducing infection. In general, governments adopt country-specific prevention and control strategies based on their COVID-19 situation, health resources, response capacity and final goals (6). No matter what kind of strategy a country takes, concerted and sustained efforts are needed to end the COVID-19 pandemic globally, especially for curbing the rapid spread of the Omicron variant. Conflicts of interest No conflicts of interest.

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Contributors

Yanqiu Rachel Zhou:

ORCID: http://orcid.org/0000-0002-8462-9177

zhoura@mcmaster.ca

Journal

Journal ID (nlm-ta): Global Health

Journal ID (iso-abbrev): Global Health

Title: Globalization and Health

Publisher: BioMed Central (London )

ISSN (Electronic): 1744-8603

Publication date (Electronic): 2 January 2024

Publication date PMC-release: 2 January 2024

Publication date Collection: 2024

Volume: 20

Electronic Location Identifier: 1

Affiliations

Department of Health, Aging & Society, McMaster University, ( https://ror.org/02fa3aq29) 1280 Main Street West, L8S 4M4 Hamilton, ON Canada

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Yanqiu Rachel Zhou http://orcid.org/0000-0002-8462-9177

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Publisher ID: 1011

DOI: 10.1186/s12992-023-01011-x

PMC ID: 10759387

PubMed ID: 38167039

SO-VID: 71a17a5c-a7bd-4bec-8c03-bcdb23cea3fc

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Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver ( http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.

History

Date received : 24 August 2023

Date accepted : 26 December 2023

Funding

Funded by: FundRef http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/100009776, McMaster University;

Award ID: McMaster University

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ScienceOpen disciplines: Health & Social care

Keywords: pandemic response,china,global health governance,politics,globalization

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ScienceOpen disciplines: Health & Social care

Keywords: pandemic response, china, global health governance, politics, globalization

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HIV/AIDS, SARS, and COVID-19: the trajectory of China’s pandemic responses and its changing politics in a contested world

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Novel Coronavirus Disease COVID-19

Most cited references 94

Response to the COVID-19 Epidemic: The Chinese Experience and Implications for Other Countries

Should HIV/AIDS Be Securitized? The Ethical Dilemmas of Linking HIV/AIDS and Security

The Dynamic COVID-Zero Strategy in China

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