Which Matters More in Fighting COVID-19—Government Policy or Community Participation?

Abstract

ObjectiveAs a heavily populated megacity, Shanghai faces major epidemic risks. However, Shanghai's control of COVID-19 has been successful owing to both the strict government policy and wide community participation. Here, we investigated the impact of these stakeholders and examined who played a major role across different epidemic stages.DesignWe extended the classic susceptible-exposed-infectious-recovered (SEIR) model considering the heterogeneous contact structure in four social sceneries, i.e., school, workplace, public entertainment venues, and neighborhood community, which could reflect the impact of lockdown policy and wide participation of residents happened at the community level.ResultThe simulation results showed that without lockdown policy and only with community participation, the daily new confirmed cases would gradually increase to more than 7,000 [292/1,000,000] at the end of Sep. However, without community participation and only with a lockdown policy, the daily new confirmed cases sharply decreased to 30 [1.2/1,000,000] at the end of the 1st month and remained low for several months. However, when a lockdown policy was gradually lifted, the new confirmed cases increased exponentially, eventually reaching more than 17,000 [708/1,000,000]. Therefore, a government lockdown policy was necessary for the rapid control of COVID-19 during the outbreak stage while community participation is more important in keeping the number of new confirmed cases low during the reopening stage.ConclusionGovernment lockdown policy and community participation play different roles in the control of COVID-19 at different stages of the epidemic: although the government played a leading role in setting up policies, the broader participation of community fever clinics (CFCs) and the general public were especially crucial in winning the battle against COVID-19 in the long run.

Analysis of the evolving factors of social media users’ emotions and behaviors: a longitudinal study from China’s COVID-19 opening policy period

“…In short, China’s population of 1.4 billion has implemented strict containment policies for three years, but the outbreak has been difficult to control. Prolonged lockdowns have less impact on the control of Covid-19 [ 36 ]. The government adopted the lockdown policy to lift the epidemic and faced large-scale epidemic infections.…”

Meta-analysis of KAP toward COVID-19 in Chinese residents

“…The most important preventive measures against this disease include the use of antiseptics, the use of face masks, social distancing, and vaccinations (9)(10)(11)(12). Each country adopts different prevention policies, resulting in different morbidity and mortality rates among its citizens (13,14). The mortality rate of the disease varies between countries, with reported mortality rates ranging from 2 to 5% (15, 16).…”

What Is the Rational Choice of Community Governance Policy

“…The modernization of community governance has the premise of the modernization of grassroots governance and is the key to achieving the "three-step" strategic goal of modernizing the national governance system and governance capacity [1]. With the advancement of community governance reform, the responsibility boundary between the government and the community has become clear [2]. The community has more autonomy, and a governance mechanism with multi-subject participation in the community has begun to take shape [3].…”