Corona-Experience of Taiwan

The country with the promptest and most successful response to the Novel Coronavirus thread is Taiwan. As of April 6, 2020, there are only 365 cases and 5 COVID-19-related deaths in the country, and this unprecedented success in fighting the SARS-CoV-2 virus is hardly coincidental.

Due to the country’s proximity to China, Taiwan was severely affected by the 2003 SARS epidemic, which also originated in China and spread like wildfire in Taiwan, killing 71 people (making up nearly 10% of the global SARS fatalities). To prevent this from ever happening again, the government of Taiwan created a special epidemiological commission called the Central Epidemic Command Centers, the function of which was to track and deal with any new outbreaks, especially those coming from China. So, the country was pretty much ready for COVID-19, and the first actions towards limiting the outbreak in the country started in January.

The country’s first actions were to restrict entrance to arrivals from Hong Kong and mandate strict 14-day self-quarantine measures to anyone arriving from China. These restrictions seemed excessive at first, but the recent reports suggesting that China may have been downplaying the magnitude of the Novel Coronavirus outbreak put Taiwan’s unusually quick response in perspective. With the spread of the virus, mask-wearing in public spaces was enforced, mass testing was conducted and televised daily briefings by the minister of health Chen Shih-Chung took place and helped raise morale and cooperation in the public. Other information systems were available to the public to ensure prompt diagnosis and quarantine measures.

The combination of all these early measures managed to limit the spread of the disease throughout Taiwan dramatically despite the shared border with China and helped prevent the SARS 2003 scenario from repeating itself.Experience of Taiwan