Fighting the First Wave: Why the Coronavirus Was Tackled So Differently Across the Globe
Cambridge University Press, 3/18/2021
EAN 9781316518335, ISBN10: 1316518337
Hardcover, 392 pages, 23.5 x 15.9 x 3.2 cm
Language: English
Originally published in English
COVID-19 is the biggest public health and economic disaster of our time. It has posed the same threat across the globe, yet countries have responded very differently and some have clearly fared much better than others. Peter Baldwin uncovers the reasons why in this definitive account of the global politics of pandemic. He shows that how nations responded depended above all on the political tools available - how firmly could the authorities order citizens' lives and how willingly would they be obeyed? In Asia, nations quarantined the infected and their contacts. In the Americas and Europe they shut down their economies, hoping to squelch the virus's spread. Others, above all Sweden, responded with a light touch, putting their faith in social consensus over coercion. Whether citizens would follow their leaders' requests and how soon they would tire of their demands were crucial to hopes of taming the pandemic.
Introduction
One Threat, Many Responses
1. Science, Politics, and History
Do They Explain the Variety of Approaches to Covid-19?
2. New Dogs, Old Tricks
Fighting Covid-19 with Ancient Preventive Tactics
3. The Politics of Prevention
How State and Citizen Interacted, Battling the Virus
4. What Was Done? Act One of the Pandemic
5. Why the Preventive Playing Field Was Not Level
Geography, Prosperity, Society
6. Where and Why Science Mattered
Traditional Chinese Medicine, Herd Immunity, Asymptomatic Carriers, Superspreading, and Masks
7. From State to Citizen
The Individualization of Public Health
8. Who is Responsible for Our Health? How Prevention was Enforced
9. Difficult Decisions in Hard Times
Trade-offs between Being Safe and Solvent
Conclusion
Public Health and Public Goods
The State in a Post-Pandemic World
Acknowledgments
Notes
Index.