Complex Systems of Disaster Response: The Case of COVID-19

At present, disasters frequently occur throughout the world. Due to different cultural backgrounds and organisational structures, most countries adopt network governance, hierarchical organization, and centralised management. However, the effect of management is often not satisfactory. Therefore, this paper takes the outbreak of COVID-19 in 2019 as a case to explore whether complex systems management can provide ideas to disaster response. The study demonstrates the need for complex systems in disaster response by conducting an in-depth analysis of response data in China and Australia, using the case study of the 2019 pandemic outbreak.