Fighting Covid-19: Taiwan’s ‘successful’ experience
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An airport staff holds up information boards regarding passenger health.
Fighting Covid-19: Taiwan’s ‘successful’ experience
Just 11 people died from Covid-19 in Taiwan a month after the outbreak in March 2020, an impressive feat considering the island never went into lockdown.
Today, after a recent Delta variant attack that it had also successfully contained, it has registered only 787 deaths, 15,599 total infections with 12,664 recoveries amid an extremely low vaccination rate because of its difficulty to access vaccines due to global politics and China’s agenda.
The Conversation reported in an April 16 article that was updated on April 24. that at the start of the pandemic, Taiwan was considered high risk for Covid-19 due to its proximity to China and the frequent travel that takes place between the two countries.
With a history of SARS in 2003, which was not considered to be handled particularly well, the Taiwanese government acted quickly to close its borders this time around. It set up a Central Epidemic Command Centre on Jan 20, 2020 to coordinate cooperation across different government ministries and agencies, and between government and businesses.
Taiwanese Health and Welfare Minister Dr Shih-chung Chen
A new study in the Journal of the American Medical Association has examined further just why Taiwan did so well at conquering Covid-19. The study’s authors, from a range of health institutes and hospitals in Taiwan and the US, compared the estimated effectiveness of two types of Covid-19 policy in the early months of the pandemic: case-based and population-based measures.
Case-based measures include the detection of infected people through testing, isolation of positive cases, contact tracing and 14-day quarantining of close contacts. The population-based measures included face mask policies, personal hygiene and social distancing.
The effects of these policies were quantified by estimating the effective reproduction number (R number).
The R number is a way of rating an infectious disease’s ability to spread – it represents the average number of people that one infected person will pass a virus onto. An R number of greater than 1 means the virus will continue to spread and outbreaks will continue. An R number below 1 means that case numbers will start to reduce.
PNG Cyber Monitor is running a series of Covid-19 articles to help Papua New Guineans understand the pandemic and learn from Taiwan’s experience in beating the virus.
This is the first instalment of the series:
OPINION - Building a resilient and inclusive global health system together—Taiwan can help
Taiwan's public health control measures mitigated the economic impact of COVID-19, says health minister
Dr. Shih-chung Chen |07.05.2021
The author is Minister of Health and Welfare, Taiwan
TAIPEI, Taiwan
The threat that emerging infectious diseases pose to global health and the economy, trade, and tourism never ceases. Pandemics can spread rapidly around the world due to international aviation and transport. As of March 2021, a novel form of pneumonia that first emerged in Wuhan, China, at the end of 2019 and has since been classified as coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has caused more than 126 million cases and more than 2.7 million deaths worldwide. The disease has had an enormous medical, economic, and social impact around the world and significantly threatened global efforts to achieve the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.
Due to its proximity to China, Taiwan had been expected to be one of the countries that would be most severely affected by the epidemic. But given its experience of fighting the 2003 SARS outbreak, Taiwan did not ignore the alarms, piecing together evolving official and unofficial accounts to form a picture of the emerging disease that implied scope and severity worse than the global public perception suggested. Authorities used this information to launch enhanced monitoring on December 31, 2019, and have tirelessly implemented public health containment measures since Taiwan’s first case was detected on January 21, 2020. As of April 22, 2021, there had been 1,086 confirmed cases, including 11 deaths, in Taiwan. Life and work have continued much as normal for the majority of the population. Taiwan has contained COVID-19 ever since the beginning of the pandemic, including a record 253 days without any cases of domestic transmission between April and December 2020.
After dealing with SARS, Taiwan established a nationwide infectious disease healthcare network that is led and overseen by infectious disease experts across six regions. More than 100 secondary response hospitals are included in the network and all twenty-two special municipalities, counties, and cities have designated their primary response hospitals. The network also provides the legal authority for transferring patients with highly contagious diseases to designated facilities based on public health and clinical need. This has proven instrumental in protecting health systems and health professionals from being overwhelmed and allowed most non-COVID-19 health services to continue to operate without disruption during the pandemic. To date, there have been only two hospital-associated COVID-19 outbreaks in Taiwan. Both were well managed, resulting in a total of 11 cases and zero death of health professionals.
By introducing public health control measures early and effectively, Taiwan has also mitigated the economic impact of COVID-19. To maintain essential international, social, economic, and trade activities, Taiwan implemented flexible adjustments for related quarantine measures for vessels and aircraft so that fisheries, offshore wind farms, and air transport industries could continue operations. In stark contrast with the global economic contraction, Taiwan’s GDP growth for 2020 was approximately 3.11 percent, with even higher growth of 4.94 percent in the fourth quarter. Furthermore, public trust and cooperation with the government’s response have been vital to contain COVID-19 successfully. In formulating disease control regulations, the government has adhered to the principles of reasonable response, minimum damage, and gradual adoption. It has worked hard to maintain the balance between people’s right to know and personal privacy and freedom, actively responding to people’s wishes by upholding the principle of fairness at the same time as prioritizing the protection of disadvantaged groups, including migrant workers. Throughout this pandemic, Taiwan has demonstrated an emphasis on the right to health and associated protections and strong opposition to human rights abuses. Indeed, at no point has Taiwan restricted people’s right to free expression, assembly, or participation in public life.
Although COVID-19 has hit all countries hard, its impact has been harshest among already vulnerable and high-risk communities, as well as those lacking quality health care services and those unable to handle the adverse consequences of anti-pandemic containment measures. As a responsible member of the international community, Taiwan will do its utmost to work with the World Health Organization and global health leaders to ensure that all people enjoy living and working conditions that are conducive to good health. We will also monitor health inequities to advocate more effectively for universal access to quality health services.
Thanks to its robust health system, rigorous testing strategies, information transparency, and public-private partnerships, Taiwan’s response to COVID-19 has been one of the world’s success stories. This pandemic has proven yet again that Taiwan cannot remain outside of the global health network. Taiwan plays an indispensable role in the global monitoring and early warning systems that detect the threat of emerging infectious diseases, and the Taiwan Model has proven consistently capable of containing COVID-19. The pandemic has also highlighted Taiwan’s capacity to research, develop, produce, and supply therapies and associated tools quickly (including two COVID-19 vaccines that are presently in Phase 2 trials). Being able to participate comprehensively and contribute to international COVID-19 supply chain systems, as well as global diagnostics, vaccine, and therapeutics platforms would allow Taiwan to work with the rest of the world.
We urge WHO and related parties to acknowledge Taiwan’s longstanding contributions to the international community in the areas of public health, disease prevention, and the human right to health and to include Taiwan in WHO and its meetings, mechanisms, and activities. Taiwan will continue to work with the rest of the world to ensure that all enjoy the fundamental human right to health as stipulated in the WHO Constitution. Echoing the mantra of the United Nations’ 2030 Sustainable Development Goals, no one should be left behind.
*Opinions expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Anadolu Agency.
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