While some authoritarian governments have won early praise, research shows that democratic countries with a balance of power between central and regional bodies are best able to succeed.
Countries aiming to flatten the coronavirus curve have one crucial aim: reduce the “effective reproduction number” of the virus to below 1. This means the spread is slowing, rather than accelerating.
Singapore, once a success in containing coronavirus, now has the most cases in Southeast Asia. One of the main reasons: the government’s neglect of its 300,000 foreign migrant workers.
Singapore only introduced a partial lockdown in early April.
EPA-EFE
Lockdowns will have to be lifted cautiously and new waves of infection are likely.
Ireland’s health minister, center, models social distancing at his nightly coronavirus press briefing March 27, 2020.
Sasko Lazarov/RollingNews.ie/PA Images via Getty Images
When a government’s health messaging during a crisis is inconsistent or unrealistic, it engenders the kind of confusion, misinformation and non-cooperation seen in the US and UK.
Singapore’s successful use of a mobile contact tracing app is among the ways New Zealand could use technology better in its COVID-19 lockdown.
Wallace Woon/EPA
Jon MacKay, University of Auckland, Waipapa Taumata Rau
Automated text messages if your phone detects you’re a long way from home, or discounted home internet, are just a few possible technology solutions to make New Zealanders “stay home to save lives”.
Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore
The keys to success in Singapore: being prepared, keeping those infected with coronavirus out of the community and communicating effectively with the public.
Only the inner suburbs of Melbourne and other capital cities meet the 20-minute neighbourhood test. But we could transform the other suburbs for much less than the cost of current transport projects.
Arturo Bris, International Institute for Management Development (IMD)
According to a new smart cities index, the real test for smart cities is whether citizens feel the benefits.
With more than 80% of Singaporeans living in state-provided housing, the city rates well for affordability compared to Sydney, where the figure is just 5.5%.
Bill Roque/Shutterstock
A coordinated mix of policies does more to keep housing affordable for a significant proportion of a city’s residents than the unbalanced approach we see in Sydney.
Active fire hotspots detected by S-NPP/VIIRS on September 7 2019.
NASA Worldview
We have developed an online tool to help authorities identify which areas they should focus on for reducing forest fires and haze in order to maximize overall health benefits.
A customer waits for the world’s longest flight from Singapore to Newark.
AP Photo/Wong Maye-E
The day and a half it takes to get from New York to Singapore and back offers plenty of time to ponder the economics of ultra-long-haul flights – and wonder why we’d want to make it any longer.
The approach to housing in the UK hasn’t worked for years. What could we learn from how it’s done in other countries?
A recent study has found that many Obama supporters didn’t vote for Hillary Clinton in the 2016 US election because of the spread of fake news.
Chris Kleponis/AAP
Human rights activists, legal experts and others fear these laws have the potential to be misused to stifle free speech or unintentionally block legitimate online posts and websites.
Despite efforts to encourage a shift to sustainable transportation, traffic congestion is often the focus of debates over mobility. Motorists endlessly demand more roads, but is this really a solution?
‘The Golden Orange Solar City’, a depiction of the Turkish city of Antalya in the future (as inspired by Solar Punk literature such as the ‘Glass and Gardens’ anthology edited by Sarena Ulabarri).
Alan Marshall
Richard Carney, China Europe International Business School
Almost one-third of countries around the world are authoritarian regimes with the trappings of democracy. Their bad behavior poses a threat to real democracies, as the United States recently learned.
Senior Lecturer – Creative Intelligence | Faculty of Transdisciplinary Innovation & Senior Lecturer – Accounting | UTS Business School, University of Technology Sydney
Honorary Enterprise Professor, School of Population and Global Health, and Department of General Practice and Primary Care, The University of Melbourne