Wuhan: How the COVID-19 Outbreak in China Spiraled Out of Control

The Covid-19 pandemic is a generation-defining event of global significance. In this talk, Dali L. Yang, the William C. Reavis Professor of Political Science at The University of Chicago, draws on his recent book on China's emergency response to the Covid-19 outbreak to examine the factors that have affected health emergency decision-making and hence the scale and scope of the outbreak. The focus of the study is on how epidemic information was processed, the cognitive framework that affected the policy decisions, and the lessons to be drawn on health emergency decision-making and leadership. It offers food for thought on prospects for reforms and capacity enhancement.

About the speaker:
Dali L. Yang is the William Claude Reavis Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Chicago . Yang's research is on the politics of China's development, governance, and global impact. He has in recent years written extensively on China and the Covid-19 pandemic and is the author of Wuhan: How the Covid-19 Outbreak in China Spiraled Out of Control (Oxford University Press, 2024). He is also the author of Calamity and Reform in China: State, Rural Society and Institutional Change since the Great Leap Famine (Stanford University Press, 1996); and Beyond Beijing: Liberalization and the Regions in China (Routledge, 1997); and Remaking the Chinese Leviathan: Market Transition and the Politics of Governance in China (Stanford University Press, 2004).