Pandemic cities: biopolitical effects of changing infection control in post‐SARS Hong Kong

Abstract

The growing fear of an emerging pandemic has facilitated efforts in infection control, where new technologies and laws have been introduced nationally and at the level of WHO. This renewed emphasis on infection control is changing the character of global health. This is well described as a securitisation of global health. Less clear is how an ‘emerging diseases worldview’ does play out on an urban scale. The city has historically been the preferred site for biopolitical interventions, which poses a question about the biopolitics of the ‘pandemic city’. Severely experiencing the SARS epidemic in 2003, Hong Kong may be an exemplary case in this regard. Focusing on ways of governing un/healthy bodies in post‐SARS Hong Kong, the article details a refined biopolitics, where longstanding mechanisms of social exclusion are combined with enhanced forms of social control through a mix of architectural, ideological and intelligence‐gathering processes.

The impact of social ties and SARS memory on the public awareness of 2019 novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) outbreak

“…Experience of similar events, such as outbreaks of H5NI influenza in 2001, SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) in 2003, H1N1 influenza in 2009 and Ebola in 2014 is also likely to influence awareness. In China, the outbreak of SARS between 2003 and 2004 caused a total of 7,429 reported cases and 685 deaths 6 , and had a lasting traumatic impact on survivors and communities 7 , 8 . In this work, we set out to test whether public awareness of the new disease outbreak is related to social ties distance from the place impacted by the epidemic and past experience of the SARS epidemic in 2003.…”

Resiliência urbana e serviços sociais de interesse geral: quem perde acessibilidade aos sistemas de saúde durante as crises?

“…A crise da pandemia amplifica as iniquidades sociais globais, regionais e urbanas de natureza estrutural, ao mesmo tempo que cria novos mecanismos radicais de exclusão indexados a experiências de controle social, e faz emergir a necessidade de implementar um conjunto de regras neo-higienistas inacessíveis aos mais pobres a aos mais vulneráveis (Füller, 2016).…”

Social distance and SARS memory: impact on the public awareness of 2019 novel coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak

“…1). We then compute the shortest steps between any city to Wuhan, deriving the variable social distances for city as ∈ (1,8). Wuhan and the cities located in Hubei province have = 1, while cities located far away from Wuhan tend to have larger values, e.g., = ℎ = 6.…”

“…Experience of similar events, such as outbreaks of H5NI influenza in 2001, SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) in 2003, H1N1 influenza in 2009 and Ebola in 2014 is also likely to influence awareness. In China, the outbreak of SARS between 2003 and 2004 caused a total of 7,429 reported cases and 685 deaths 6 , and had a lasting traumatic impact on survivors and communities 7,8 . In this work, we set out to test whether public awareness of the new disease outbreak is related to social distance from the centre of the epidemic and past experience of the SARS epidemic in 2003.…”