Department of Public Administration, School of Public Management, Zhejiang Gongshang University, Hangzhou 310018, China.
Department of Land Resources Management, School of Public Management, Zhejiang Gongshang University, Hangzhou 310018, China.
Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2022 Jul 1;19(13):8094. doi: 10.3390/ijerph19138094.
Since January 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic has caused millions of deaths and has posed a major public health threat worldwide. Such a massive and complex crisis requires quick and comprehensive policy responses. We developed an empirical dataset of policy mixes that included 4915 policies across 36 Chinese cities and investigated the relationships between the policy design choices and the COVID-19 pandemic response outcomes of a city. Using topic modeling and ordinary least squares regression analysis, we found considerable variation among cities in the compositions and design features of their policy mixes. Our analysis revealed that restriction measures did not significantly influence limiting the spread of the pandemic, but they were negatively correlated with the economic growth rate. By contrast, health protection measures greatly contributed to controlling viral spread. Intensive socioeconomic support reduced the occurrence of secondary disasters. The most effective policy strategy to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic appears to be a comprehensive policy design with a mix of restrictions, health protection measures, and socioeconomic support policies accompanied by a timely lockdown. Our empirical findings can help to improve pandemic policy design and contribute to generating broader lessons for how local governments should deal with similar crises in the future.
自 2020 年 1 月以来，COVID-19 大流行导致数百万人死亡，对全球公共卫生构成重大威胁。如此大规模和复杂的危机需要快速和全面的政策应对。我们开发了一个政策组合的经验数据集，其中包括 36 个中国城市的 4915 项政策，并调查了一个城市的政策设计选择与 COVID-19 大流行应对结果之间的关系。使用主题建模和普通最小二乘法回归分析，我们发现城市之间的政策组合的组成和设计特征存在相当大的差异。我们的分析表明，限制措施并没有显著影响限制疫情的传播，但它们与经济增长率呈负相关。相比之下，保护健康的措施对控制病毒传播有很大的贡献。密集的社会经济支持减少了次生灾害的发生。应对 COVID-19 大流行最有效的政策策略似乎是一种全面的政策设计，包括限制、保护健康措施和社会经济支持政策，并伴有及时的封锁。我们的实证研究结果有助于改进大流行政策设计，并为地方政府在未来应对类似危机提供更广泛的经验教训。
