How-to China: Pandemic fight holds lessons for world, expert says

Question:

What anti-epidemic measures and policies that China has pursued can be learnt by other countries?

Tang: China has adopted a containment policy and thus uses highly stringent measures to fight the pandemic. This policy differs a lot from other countries and is unlikely able to be copied wholesale by other countries that didn't intend to contain the epidemic from the beginning. However, China's experience is still valuable for these countries in regard to mobilizing public health measures to flatten the epidemic curve to avoid hospital stress. Importantly, China has successfully proved that — in the absence of vaccines and drugs — conventional public health measures assisted by modern communication technologies and nucleic acid testing can work to eradicate an emerging infectious disease with pandemic potential within the place where it started. This is a history-making event and will change our view and strategy for future emerging infectious diseases.