城市医生资源与新冠肺炎防控效率

Urban Physicians and the Efficiency of COVID-19 Containment

本文利用非参数估计法考察了我国城市层面的新冠肺炎病情防控效率,讨论了医生资源对防控效率的影响。结果表明,城市疫情防控措施显著降低了每日新增病例,但存在明显地区异质性,城市医生资源差异是解释防控效率异质性的重要因素。医生资源对防控效率的影响具有非线性特征,在资源紧缺城市边际促进作用更大。包括病床和医院数量在内的医疗物质投入没有产生边际影响,表明医疗物质资源还未达到约束状态。进一步分析医生职业结构发现,临床医生的作用最为显著。地区应急响应启动越早,医生资源的作用越大,因此政府相关政策是医生资源作用的有力保障。新冠肺炎疫情一定程度上暴露了我国医生资源短板,需要多措并举有效提升城市医生资源供给。

This paper estimates the city-level prevention and control efficiency of COVID-19 with a nonparametric method.We find a significant but heterogeneous effect of prevention policy among China’s cities,and the difference in urban physician resources is the main explanation for such heterogeneity.The urban health care professionals have a greater marginal effect on COVID-19 containment in the cities where they are in relative scarcity.The input of medical materials including hospitals and hospital beds has no marginal effect on disease control,which indicates that medical materials do not reach a constraint state.Further analysis of doctors’occupational structure finds that the role of clinicians is more critical than the other types of doctors.In cities where emergency response starts earlier,doctors play a more important role in improving prevention and control efficiency.Therefore,government policy is a safeguard for the doctors to play their role.The COVID-19 reveals that China’s health care human resources need to be improved.