An increase in daily new confirmed cases is associated with a lower level of publicly expressed happiness in mainland China, and a higher level of negative affect in the other four regions. We find individual emotions to be significantly impacted by COVID-19 in East Asia. The successes of Australia and New Zealand suggest that even in countries with more individualistic, short-term oriented, and more indulgent citizens, a responsible government still can implement very effective policies to contain the spread of COVID-19.įinally, we examine the impact of COVID-19 and mobility control and physical distancing policies on emotions. However, these cultural tendencies alone are not indispensable for controlling the pandemic. We argue that certain cultural traits (defined in Hofstede’s model of national culture), such as being less individualistic, more long-term oriented, and less indulgent may help to explain the more self-regulated behavior and greater compliance with government policies in East Asia. In addition to rapid and systematic government responses, citizens in East Asia (except for Japan ) were generally more compliant with government mandates for mask-wearing, improving personal hygiene, and maintaining physical distance than citizens in the selected Western countries. These successes have shown that effective virus control policies can be implemented in more typical Western democracies. Specifically, proactive screening, rapid government response to local outbreaks, and extensive testing, tracing, and isolation measures have been the pillars of COVID-19 control mechanisms in these countries, aiming for a swift resumption of normal life alongside the virus, i.e., the “new normal.” We also show that the early success of government policies in the East Asia regions in combating COVID-19 is similarly found in Australia and New Zealand. In addition, as the pandemic continues across the globe, East Asian governments have built up the capacity of their public health systems, and they have explored dynamic response protocols that are more targeted and sustainable in their prevention of major resurgences. It is also essential to have multi-pronged strategies and comprehensive use of mobility restrictions combined with other interventions. The weaker policies in Japan are associated with the worst performance in containing COVID-19 among the five East Asian regions.Ī detailed summary of the policies in the five East Asian regions shows the importance of restructured and strong government response systems in providing the necessary institutional infrastructure for effectively enforcing control measures. In particular, East Asian governments implemented more stringent mobility control and physical distancing policies, as well as more comprehensive testing, tracing, and isolation policies (except for Japan) since the early stages. Our analysis shows that East Asia’s success, compared with the six selected Western societies, can be attributed to stronger and more prompt government responses, as well as better civic cooperation. We will also compare them with two Western countries located in the Asia-Pacific region, Australia and New Zealand, which have done quite well in controlling the spread of COVID-19. We then compare the East Asian regions’ performance with a selected group of Western countries with large populations and economies, including: France, Germany, Italy, Spain, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Our study focuses on five regions: mainland China Hong Kong SAR of China (hereafter “Hong Kong SAR”) Taiwan, China (hereafter “Taiwan”) South Korea and Japan. This chapter explores how the East Asian countries or regions (hereafter “East Asian regions,” for simplicity) have dealt with the pandemic and how both the infection and government policy have affected emotional well-being. In general, some countries in East Asia and the Pacific had better performance in containing the spread of COVID-19, compared to the rest of the world. Government policies and personal behaviors in coping with the pandemic have varied greatly across countries and regions, and the resulting infection and death rates have differed correspondingly. The pandemic has affected many key aspects of life around the world. COVID-19, which was first discovered and reported in Wuhan, China in December 2019, spread across the world at a fast and terrifying pace throughout 2020.
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