Sustainable COVID-19 Mitigation: Wuhan Lockdowns, Health Inequities, and Patient Evacuation

Abstract

<jats:p>The world is urgently looking for ways to flatten the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) curve, and many governments have resorted to implementing strict lockdowns, as researchers show the effectiveness of China’s approaches in containing the virus. However, this paper argues that the draconian lockdowns instituted in Wuhan, Hubei, China, may have actually contributed to intensifying patient surges and incapacitating local health systems. Medical aids were rushed to Hubei and new hospitals were rapidly built, however, the healthcare system was still unable to match the staggering increase of patients in the early stages of the lockdowns. The paper proposes using patient evacuation to enhance sustainable COVID-19 mitigation during lockdowns. It demonstrates that patients in Hubei could have been transported to other Chinese provinces where hospitals were under-utilized. This could have theoretically saved thousands of lives by reducing inequities between Hubei and the rest of China in healthcare capacity for treating COVID-19 patients.</jats:p>

Lessons Learned from Battling COVID-19: The Korean Experience

“…For effective response management, healthcare facilities in the affected area (cities and surrounding counties) should be integrated as an emergency response system. Then, the various healthcare facilities can be dichotomized based on their scale and core competencies so as to designate some as intensive care facilities where severely ill patients are quickly assigned for treatment and others as safe facilities where patients with non-virus related illnesses are treated [ 4 ].…”

“…COVID-19 has caused not only a health and social crisis of immense proportions forcing people to deal with the fear of infection and the physical, emotional, and financial damage from government recommended physical distancing, but it has also caused a global economic turmoil [ 1 , 2 ]. The virus started spreading in Wuhan, China in late December 2019, and became a shocking pandemic by mid-March 2020; by this time, it had already caused several hundred deaths, disrupted the global economy, and forced countries to close their doors to visitors [ 3 , 4 , 5 ]. The World Health Organization (WHO) defined COVID-19 as “an infectious disease caused by a newly discovered coronavirus” [ 6 ].…”

Significant Effect of Project Based Learning Video on Students’ Listening Skill in Pandemic Situation

“…Teachers need an innovative teaching technique to make sure that all students understand what they heard. Neverthless, in this COVID-19 pandemic, many sectors have experienced changes, one of which is in the education sector (Liu, 2020;Novianti & Garzia, 2020). Some standards that has recommended, such as social distancing and physical distancing make several activities change, specifically learning activities at school.…”

Upaya Mitigasi Dampak Covid-19 melalui Kegiatan Pemberdayaan Masyarakat di Desa Banyuasin Kabupaten Bangka

“…Tahun 2020 menjadi tahun terberat bagi seluruh negara di dunia, termasuk indonesia. Hal ini dikarenakan adanya pandemi virus covid-19 yang disebabkan oleh virus sars-cov-2 (Fruehwirth et al, 2021;Liu, 2020). Pandemi ini bermula dari terinfeksi individu pertama di wuhan salah satu kota di republik rakyat tiongkok dan kemudian menyebar ke seluruh dunia (Li et al, 2020).…”