Socio-cultural underpinnings of COVID policies

Different social values and cultures determined different COVID policies in the West and the East. [Photo: Getty Images]
The number of Covid-19 cases in Hong Kong has been rocketing upwards since the beginning of February this year. By the end of the month, it had increased by 30,000 new patients, with more than 80 deaths every day. It seems the curve still has not reached its peak to date. This international metropolis with almost the highest population density globally faces the same problem as Western countries when dealing with the pandemic. The overwhelmed healthcare system looks to be close to collapse. The society has been in the never-ending debate on the direction of the Covid-19 strategy. They want to choose the better one in two broadly classified policies employed in tackling the pandemic, “dynamic zero Covid-19” and “living with Covid-19”.

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G-7 Summit: What it Tells Us About the Challenges to Western Cohesion

Image: pxhere.com

1975, ChĂąteau de Rambouillet, 50 kilometers south-west of Paris. The heads of state and government of the six leading industrial countries gather for their first joint summit meeting. Today’s Group of Seven (G-7) was born. At its 44th summit, which took place at La Malbaie, Canada last week, the group saw a historic transition from careful policy coordination to undisguised political discord. From tensions over a possible readmission of Russia to President Trump’s instruction not to endorse the arduously negotiated communiquĂ© – the gathering ended in a diplomatic fiasco. The more so as only one day later, on 10th June, China successfully orchestrated the inking of a joint summit declaration among members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), which also counts Russia and, more recently, India and Pakistan, among its members. Is the West breaking apart while the East consolidates?

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