Prognosis

Coronavirus Shows Scale of Task to Fix China’s Flawed Healthcare

  • Dominance of big, crowded hospitals seen as a contagion risk
  • Better healthcare would see families cut precautionary savings
A pedestrian wearing a protective suit walks through Shanghai on Feb. 27.Photographer: Qilai Shen/Bloomberg
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Even before the deadly coronavirus epidemic struck, China faced a monumental task to bring its healthcare system up to scratch.

Now, the scale of that challenge has been highlighted after the virus exposed an over-reliance on big hospitals in major cities and shortcomings in how the state responds to emergencies, even with a mechanism built after the SARS outbreak in 2003 in place.