The spatial diffusion mechanism of Health QR Code Policy in the context of COVID-19

As a public health emergency, the COVID-19 has led to a devastating consequence, such as casualties and property losses on a global scale. Since February 2020, in order to prevent the spread of the epidemic as well as to promote the resumption of work and production, governments at all levels across China successively decided to take action and introduce the Health QR (quick response) Code Policy. What is known is that the Health QR Code Policy has become an important means and practice for effectively preventing and controlling the disastrous epidemic in China up to now. Based on the Event History Analysis (EHA) of the diffusion time and influencing factors of 295 cities at and above the prefecture level in China, this paper explores the spatio-temporal process and mechanism of the rapid policy implementation in tackling the pandemic across China, what is worth paying attention to is that the policy was first initiated and adopted by a provincial government. The findings are as follows: (1) The cities with higher digitization and economic strength would have a faster response to adopt the Health QR Code Policy. (2) What is worth considering is that the "learning" and "competition" behaviors among governments of neighboring cities would speed up the diffusion of the Health QR Code Policy, while the vertical guidance pressure of provincial governments did not play a significant role. (3) During the COVID-19, policy entrepreneurs have played a significant role in public emergency and become a powerful force that can accelerate the diffusion of Health QR Code Policy. (4) The epidemic situation of each city would affect the transmission rate of the Health QR Code Policy. There is no doubt that the geographical distance from the epidemic hotspots would also affect the governments to adopt the Health QR Code Policy in a short period. This paper, by analyzing the diffusion motivations of the Health QR Code Policy during the COVID-19 pandemic, could provide a predominant summary of experience and policy suggestions for understanding the formulation of emergency policies as well as the diffusion mechanism in the context of public crisis.