COVID-19: Why is medical system in metropolises so vulnerable?

How come the metropolises around the world with concentrated medical resources are so vulnerable to the COVID-19 outbreak?

Editor's note: How come the metropolises around the world with concentrated medical resources are so vulnerable to the COVID-19 outbreak? What is the future of globalization and international metropolises? As the Cloud River Urban Research Institute releases the 2019 ranking on health care radiation in Chinese cities, Zhou Muzhi, professor of Tokyo Keizai University and president of Cloud River Urban Research Institute, gives his perspective on the health care system in major cities in the coronavirus crisis.

As part of the China Integrated City Index, the Cloud River Urban Research Institute has released the 2019 ranking on health care radiation based on a research of 297 cities above prefecture-level across China. The top 10 are Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Chengdu, Hangzhou, Wuhan, Jinan, Zhengzhou, Nanjing and Taiyuan. The following top 20 are Tianjin, Shenyang, Changsha, Xi'an, Kunming, Qingdao, Nanning, Changchun, Chongqing, and Shijiazhuang. And the following top 30 are Urumqi, Shenzhen, Dalian, Fuzhou, Lanzhou, Nanchang, Guiyang, Suzhou, Ningbo and Wenzhou.

Evaluating a city's medical care radiation mainly focuses on the number of physicians and the 3A-grade hospitals. The top 30 cities account for 15% of the certified physicians, 30% of hospital beds and 45% of 3A-grade hospitals in the country. China's medical resources, especially the best hospitals, are mainly concentrated in cities higher in the ranking, which serve local residents as well as people from all around China.

One would doubt why cities like Wuhan, with one of the top medical resources, can be so vulnerable to the COVID-19 outbreak and even overwhelmed by the influx of patients？How cities should do to prepare for future epidemics?

A test for the health care system

Wuhan was the first to confront the COVID-19 outbreak. The city climbed one place to the sixth in the 2019 medical care radiation ranking, as it boasts 37 3A-grade hospitals, nearly 40,000 physicians, 54,000 nurses and 95,000 beds. It is hard to expect that a city with such strong health care capacity could be overwhelmed by the coronavirus epidemic.

Other metropolises like New York and Tokyo are equally vulnerable to the pandemic. It seems that the novel coronavirus is testing the medical capability of all global cities.

There are three reasons for the breakdown of the medical care system.