Article Review (1)
M.
Jae Moon, ‘Fighting COVID-19 with Agility, Transparency, and Participation:
Wicked Policy Problems and New Governance Challenges’, (2020) 80(4) Public Administration Review 651—656.
When the 2019 Coronavirus Disease
(COVID-19) was first identified in December 2019 among a number of patients
reported in China’s city of Wuhan, only a handful of researchers and
policymakers managed to realise the virus’ implications and its potential
effects on human society. Originally a zoonotic disease transmitted by contracts
between wild animals and infected humans in Wuhan’s ‘wet markets’, the virus
soon became capable of human-to-human transmission and eventually managed to
spread across the globe, resulting in hundred thousand of casualties and the
public health emergency of unprecedented scale. This development in return
prompted the World Health Organisation (WHO) to declare COVID-19 a Public
Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC) on 30 January 2020, along
with its subsequent decision to designate the virus a ‘pandemic’ status in
March 2020: making it the second pandemic of the 21st century following the
outbreak of the AH1N1 Influenza during the period between January 2009 to
August 2010[1]. With
its infectiveness and severity dramatically exacerbated by the ease of
individual’s mobility and local governments’ inability to address the amounting
burden on the exhausted public health system, COVID-19 has revealed through its
ascendance underlying weaknesses of globalisation and the immediate need for
reformations of the public sector, in order to enhance its capacity and
flexibility necessary in the management of systemic shock events exemplified by
the pandemic in question.
Through the analysis of responses
undertaken by the South Korean government following the sudden surge of
reported COVID-19 cases in February 2020, Fighting
COVID-19 with Agility, Transparency and Participation: Wicked Policy Problems
and New Governance Challenges (‘Fighting
COVID-19’) offers an insightful
account supporting the integration of information transparency and cooperation
between public and private sectors as staple elements within the modern public
health governance. Comparing between the South Korean government’s handling of
COVID-19 and its initial responses to the outbreak of Middle East Respiratory
Syndrome (MERS) in 2015, the article presents its finding that the government’s
decision to suppress information during the early phase of the MERS epidemic
contributed to the escalation of the issue; whereas its campaigns to raise
public awareness and invite active participation were internationally lauded
for their effects of dramatically reducing the infection rate of COVID-19[2]. In
addition to the significance of information transparency as a means to mitigate
impacts of public health emergencies on the general populace, Moon’s evaluation
of the different tactics employed between governments in response to COVID-19
also reveals the need of an effective public sector to shift its focus from the
traditional reliance on one-sided policies - including the passive approach such as the use of herd immunity; and the active approach including lockdowns and
the closure of businesses - towards more flexible measures which make uses of
both aspects of policies in the management of epidemics[3]. Coining the term
‘agile-adaptive’ approach in describing the use of Active testing by the South
Korean government to locate and isolate potential clusters of infection as a
case study, Moon also puts forward the notion that the resulting increase in
the government’s mobility would improve its efficiency and transparency:
qualities which are instrumental in maintaining the public’s trust in
government[4].
Still, while Moon’s assessment in Fighting COVID-19 may at first
accurately reflect the circumstances concerning the pandemic, the persisting
presence of COVID-19 in South Korea and his acknowledgement of potential limits
to the effectiveness of his propositions raise questions concerning the
applicability of flexible and transparent policies as methods of engagement
with COVID-19 and future public health crises. The unpredictable behaviour and
degree of cooperation from the civil society, in particular, are among main
concerns projected by the literature as factors that can jeopardise the
management of outbreaks and force interventions from the government in an
attempt to restore order - with examples including rationing campaigns adopted
in several countries to counteract illegal stockpiling of commodities like food
and toilet tissue[5]. This
assumption becomes especially evident considering the situation in South Korea
following the publication of this article, with the growing public complacency
and indoor interactions stemming from the arrival of winter resulting in the
dramatic spike of reported cases - a trend also replicated in other countries
like Japan who previously had the infection under control[6]. External circumstances and the
people’s mentality, therefore, remain unassailable issues despite efforts to
pursue the optimal form of public health governance; yet the research appears
to try remedy this empty gap through its suggestion that evidence-based
heuristics should assist in managing such uncertainties - a wishful gesture
that nonetheless remains lacking in substance.
Ultimately, disregarding the
open-ended nature of its conclusion, Fighting
COVID-19 has otherwise been successful in completing objectives it has
established for itself. In this work Moon has excelled himself in laying down
clear and concise arguments for the development of public health policy,
especially within the context of the Post-COVID-19 world as the emerging ‘new
normal’ contexts now require governance to be more flexible and sustainable
than ever.
************
[2] M. Jae Moon, ‘Fighting COVID-19 with Agility, Transparency,
and Participation: Wicked Policy Problems and New Governance Challenges’,
(2020) 80(4) Public Administration Review
652.
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