The world is looking to Italy for coronavirus lessons, why not also look to Taiwan?

I tend to post more personal things on Facebook and more professional things on LinkedIn, but tonight I think I need to share some of what I have been posting on Facebook about coronavirus on LinkedIn and I do this because I lived through SARS in Taiwan in 2002-4 and I have a sense of déjà vu that is being reinforced daily by stories in the UK media (in English rather than in the Chinese of 2003) and news from Italy - does Taiwan not being a member of the World Health Organisation (WHO) really mean that we can't learn from them?

First a thank you to Gianluigi Ragno, a member of the Concept2 Logbook group on Facebook in Italy, who posted a first-hand experience of the spread of coronavirus, urging the rest of the world to act before it's too late. The Italian situation is getting worse, despite limiting people movement and note the point: "...many asymptomatic individuals who can spread the disease. The elderly and already sick people are most at risk, children are the ones who can bring more infections because of their social behaviour and because of their mouth in and out attitude. What will happen? They could kill their grandparents easily. In a few days, the cases can become thousands, just like us." 

You can see his post here: https://www.facebook.com/gianluigiragno/posts/10221157867398354 My thoughts are with people around the world, but after reading this, I'm especially thinking of everyone in Italy and I hope you and your families can keep safe and well.

Yesterday, I posted links to Observer and Telegraph articles recognising Taiwan's success (so far and fingers crossed it remains this way) in limiting the spread of the disease. My question is: is it too late to follow the Taiwan example or are we destined to follow Italy and have over 2,000 cases on Saturday and over 6,000 in 11 days?

My Facebook post: https://www.facebook.com/stephen.taylor.9659/posts/10158362833098395

I also created a petition to encourage the government to think about investing in mask procurement and/or production - or at least do something rather than just wait.

Today, I will post links to the news that we are running short of masks in NHS trusts and the government are releasing pandemic supplies (how long will they last I wonder?) and news that Taiwan now has capacity to produce 9.2 million masks a day - enough to support their healthcare service and for everyone citizen to get one every few days...

Note that our news is still talking about masks and how they are no good at protecting the individual from catching it. They need to turn their thoughts around to realise it's not mainly about protecting individuals, it's about limiting the spread from infected individuals. It's also not rude to wear a mask, it's actually saying "if I have the virus, I don't want to give it to you." There are many unknown spreaders and the only way to limit their spread is if everyone wears masks in crowded places. The alternative we face in the next 10-14 days is a loss of freedom.

Over the last few days, I have sent emails out to the BBC and one or two experts who posted articles, posted a couple of comments and I have liked a few articles and Facebook posts. I have also written to one of the Guardian cartoonists and to the Chief Medical Officer Professor Chris Whitty with the general request to look at the Taiwan experience and either move to adopt it or refute it - I have not heard back from any directly, but Chris Whitty said today "What we are moving now to is a phase when we will be having to ask members of the general public to do different things than they would normally do...anything we do, we have got to be able to sustain...There is a risk if we go too early people will understandably get fatigued and it will be difficult to sustain this over time,...So getting the timing right is absolutely critical to making this work." He's talking about limiting our freedom of movement and shutting our schools and events - the Italian model, which doesn't seem to be working - what are we going to do differently, because repeating the same experiment and expecting a different (better) result doesn't sound like a great idea?

I understand that we do not have enough masks, but could we not do what Taiwan has done and invest in production or get some creative solutions so that we could limit the spread from infected individuals without removing our freedom? Couldn't the media just begin to present this in a different way or get to the bottom of why the government doesn't seem to consider or comment on the Taiwan example? I'd rather we don't just sit here and wait for it to hit us... I hope that temperatures rise, it all blows over and there is a vaccine before the next wave and I will be happy to apologise for any misinformation I may be trying to spread (less effectively than the virus is doing, I should add) - the alternative of an "I told you so" (possibly from the grave) is not worth considering.

Just to add some additional clarification, my wife, son and I are not wearing masks now, but we carry them with us as we have some left over from surviving SARS in Taiwan in 2003, when we needed to wear them every day to get to work and send my son to his babysitter. The experts seem to agree that SARS is more frightening than coronavirus (about 73 deaths from 346 cases in Taiwan at that time), but we went through that without losing a day of work and Taiwan learnt from the experience. I hope we can learn from them before it is too late this time in the UK.

The chart below is an exponential plot of the cases per million population in Italy, the UK and Taiwan. The data is from 2019 Novel Coronavirus COVID-19 (2019-nCoV) Data Repository by Johns Hopkins CSSE. You'll see which line I'd rather be on and remember that Taiwan is much closer to China than we are...

To add one additional level of context, the UK has reported earlier today that it has done 24,960 tests - or 376 per million of population - with 319 positive (it's not immediately clear how many have recovered, but three have died), Italy has done 53,826 swabs - or about 890 per million of population - with 9,172 cases (including 724 recovered and 463 deceased), and Taiwan has done 14,635 tests - or 615 per million of population - with 45 positive (including 15 discharged and one deceased). 17% of those tested in Italy have the virus, 1.3% in the UK and 0.31% in Taiwan - this number and the curves above suggest that Italy began testing slowly and then accelerated fast around the 21st of February. Scarily, the gradient on the UK and Italy lines is now fairly similar and it's not starting to flatten...