Purpose: In response to the transmission of COVID-19, China adopted the “national multidisciplinary healthcare assistance”. This commentary evaluates whether it is effective and sustainable to contain the COVID-19.
Methods: We adopted the “Difference-in-difference Method” to investigate whether the national multidisciplinary healthcare assistance policy could provide significant benefits in areas affected by COVID-19 by increasing their recovery rates. A total of 578 panel data samples were taken from the Ministry of Health in China.
Results: We observed that the number of recovered cases per day increased by 39.36 as a result of this policy. GDP per capita and land area were significantly negatively correlated with the number of recovered cases while the resident population was significantly positively correlated with it.
Conclusion: The national multidisciplinary healthcare assistance was an effective intervention to reduce the burden of COVID-19 and ease pressure on the healthcare system in Hubei and China. To quickly formulate and promulgate effective response policies for emergent public health crises, the national government should introduce the concept of emergency management into policy agendas and highlight the importance of “problem streams”.
Keywords: anti-epidemic, COVID-19, difference-in-difference method, healthcare system