This book examines how governments around the world responded to the health emergency created by the COVID-19 pandemic. Before vaccines became available, non-medical interventions were the main means to protect the public. Non-medical interventions were put in place by governments as public health policies. In every nation, politicians and governments faced a choice situation, and worldwide, they made different choices. Public health policies came at a price, in economic, social, and ultimately electoral costs to the political incumbents. The book discusses differences in governments’ policy efforts to mitigate the virus spread. The authors conduct in-depth analysis of country-cases from Africa, North and South America, Asia, and Europe. They also offer small-n- comparative analyses as well as report global patterns and trends of governments’ responsiveness to the medical emergency. It will appeal to all those interested in public policy, health policy and governance.

This book examines similarities and differences in 31 European governments’ responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. The COVID-19 pandemic hit Europe in early 2020. It spread across the continent during the Spring while anxious electorates were treated to news reports about health systems under duress and frustrated attempts by public procurement officials to obtain adequate supplies of medical and protective equipment. Over the next 15–18 months considered by this book, national responses exhibited both similarities and profound variations as the different endeavours to regulate social interactions constituted a stress test for political systems across Europe.

The book provides a global perspective of local government response towards the COVID-19 pandemic through the analysis of a sample of countries in all continents. It examines the responses of local government, as well as the responses local government developed in articulation with other tiers of government and with civil society organizations, and explores the social, economic and policy impacts of the pandemic. The book offers an innovative contribution on the role of local government during the pandemic and discusses lessons for the future. The COVID-19 pandemic had a global impact on public health, in the well-being of citizens, in the economy, on civic life, in the provision of public services, and in the governance of cities and other human settlements, although in an uneven form across countries, cities and local communities. Cities and local governments have been acting decisively to apply the policy measures defined at national level to the specific local conditions. COVID-19 has exposed the inadequacy of the crisis response infrastructures and policies at both national and local levels in these countries as well as in many others across the world. But it also exposed much broader and deeper weaknesses that result from how societies are organized, namely the insecure life a substantial proportion of citizens have, as a result of economic and social policies followed in previous decades, which accentuated the impacts of the lockdown measures on employment, income, housing, among a myriad of other social dimensions. Besides the analysis of how governments, and local government, responded to the public health issues raised by the spread of the virus, the book deals also with the diversity of responses local governments have adopted and implemented in the countries, regions, cities and metropolitan areas. The analysis of these policy responses indicates that previously unthinkable policies can surprisingly be implemented at both national and local levels.

Contains insights on current issues in research on sustainable development, featuring the SDG Index and Dashboards.

This book is the first of its kind about healthcare reform efforts in Kazakhstan since its independence within the context of the public sector reform movement. The book provides a brief background of Kazakhstan and its Soviet legacy and the country’s efforts to modernize the health system, before creating an overview of the existing system, the reforms since independence, and the future of healthcare in Kazakhstan. This book will be of interest to policymakers, analysts, and development economists.

This book comprehensively analyzes COVID-19 and its impact as well as the response from the perspectives of humanities and social sciences. This book covers topics ranging from geopolitical relations to regional integration, public health governance and even the evolution of professional practices in the time of COVID-19. It constitutes a precious and timely interdisciplinary reference for anyone aspiring not only to grasp the origins and dynamics of the present challenge, but also to identify future opportunities for further growth and holistic progress for humanity.

The COVID-19 pandemic not only ravaged human bodies but also had profound and possibly enduring effects on the health of political and legal systems, economies and societies. Almost overnight, governments imposed the severest restrictions in modern times on rights and freedoms, elections, parliaments and courts. Legal and political institutions struggled to adapt, creating a catalyst for democratic decline and catastrophic increases in poverty and inequality. This handbook analyses the global pandemic response through five themes: governance and democracy; human rights; the rule of law; science, public trust and decision making; and states of emergency and exception. Containing 12 thematic commentaries and 25 chapters on countries of diverse size, wealth and experience of COVID-19, it represents the combined effort of more than 50 contributors, including leading scholars and rising voices in the fields of constitutional, international, public health, human rights and comparative law, as well as political science, and science and technology studies. Taking stock after the onset of global emergency, this book provides essential analysis for politicians, policy-makers, jurists, civil society organisations, academics, students and practitioners at both national and international level on the best, and most concerning, practices adopted in response to COVID-19 – and key insights into how states and multilateral institutions should reform, adapt and prepare for future emergencies.

Data-driven science has become a major decision-making aid for the diagnosis and treatment of disease. Computational and visual analytics enables effective exploration and sense making of large and complex data through the deployment of appropriate data science methods, meaningful visualisation and human-information interaction. This edited volume covers state-of-the-art theory, method, models, design, evaluation and applications in computational and visual analytics in desktop, mobile and immersive environments for analysing biomedical and health data. The book is focused on data-driven integral analysis, including computational methods and visual analytics practices and solutions for discovering actionable knowledge in support of clinical actions in real environments. By studying how data and visual analytics have been implemented into the healthcare domain, the book demonstrates how analytics influences the domain through improving decision making, specifying diagnostics, selecting the best treatments and generating clinical certainty.

This book analyses the first two years of South Africa’s response to the COVID-19 epidemic, from its emergence in early 2020. Drawing on the perspectives of a range of public health experts, economists and other social scientists, and development practitioners, this book argues that understanding this early response will be essential to moderate and improve future policy thinking around health governance and epidemic readiness. This book provides a systemic analysis of not only the epidemiological progression of COVID-19 in South Africa, but also the socio-political factors that will be key in determining the future of the country as a whole, including health system challenges, socio-economic disparities and inequalities, and variable (often contradictory and tardy) policy responses. Overall, this book exposes Manichean thinking and the spurious policy dichotomies that pitch public health against human rights, economic recovery against viral vector control, and science against ideology, with lessons not just for South Africa, but also for elsewhere on the African continent, and beyond. This book will be perfect for researchers and practitioners across Public Health, Health Policy, and Global Health, as well as those with an interest in South African politics and development more generally. The Open Access version of this book, available at http://www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.