COVID-19: Tracking East Asia's Response in Year One

On 25 June 2021, a panel consisting of faculty members from Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy and Hong Kong University of Science & Technology, as well as alumni of Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, spoke on how Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan responded to the pandemic. The Social Inclusion Project also introduced a publicly-accessible online policy tracker, known as COVID-19 Policy Response in East Asia that compares the timing and content of COVID-19 policies in the four places alongside key case metrics.

Synopsis:

Since the outbreak of COVID-19 in early 2020, policy interventions in many countries have been intense and wide-ranging, covering domains from public health and the economy, to school closures and diplomacy. Although the policy responses in Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan have garnered international admiration, the pandemic persists and re-emerged each time it looked like it had been contained. At this seminar, speakers looked back at 2020 and reflected on what these governments had gotten right, what they might have done differently, and what their policies told us about their economic priorities, governance capacities, politics and societies. The speakers also illustrated how the publicly-accessible online policy tracker, known as COVID-19 Policy Response in East Asia, can provide insights on the timing and content of COVID-19 policies in the four places alongside key case metrics.

Watch the recording here.