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On Easter Sunday, April 12, German health authorities recorded nearly 3,000 new corona virus infections. The country was locked in, 125,000 infections had already been reported to the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) by then. This Easter Sunday is the day the last local corona broadcast is reported in Taiwan, according to “CNN.”
More than 200 days have passed since then. But how is it possible? Taiwan is not a miniature state, with around 23 million inhabitants, even more than the Czech Republic and Belgium combined. And in these two countries, crown numbers have soared in recent weeks.
Rather, the reasons can be traced back to early measures, experience with pandemics, and geographic conditions. The Tagesspiegel reported on this in March. Therefore, according to “Our World in Data”, Taiwan only had 554 corona cases as of Friday, only 55 of them were local broadcasts within the country. In the Czech Republic and Belgium there are currently more than 30,000 accumulated – during the day.
Taiwan achieved this without having to impose strict restrictions on freedom or even a blockade. From the beginning, Taiwan focused on containing the speed of spread. Therefore, the President of Taiwan, Tsai Ing-wen, shouts to the world: “Don’t be too scared!”
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In January, Taiwanese authorities screened all air travelers from Wuhan, China, where the first Corona case occurred on December 31. When Taiwan tested the first human positive for the virus on January 21, authorities barred all Wuhan residents from entering the country.
In addition, all travelers arriving in Taiwan from China, Hong Kong and Macao were verified. And that even before there was the first lockdown in Wuhan. He went into effect on January 23. With the number of infected people in Taiwan reaching the 100 mark in March, authorities completely sealed off the country. Only diplomats and locals were allowed in.
The fact that this measure can be implemented so easily has to do with a great geographical advantage that few countries in Europe have: Taiwan is an island. Therefore, border control is limited to those arriving by plane or boat.
Another benefit is that Corona is not the first pandemic that Taiwan has faced in recent decades. The country was last hit by a deadly SARS virus in 2003, prompting authorities to take steps to better prepare for the upcoming pandemics.
“Then we knew it: it must be something similar”
“When we heard that there were some secret cases in China where pneumonia patients had been isolated, we knew it had to be something similar,” Taiwan Foreign Minister Joseph Wu said in September. As early as January, the authorities called the place the “Central Command Center for Epidemics” (CECC), founded in 2003.
This center coordinated the activities between the ministries of Taiwan. This allowed the government to rapidly increase production of masks and protective gear to prepare for an impending pandemic. The Taiwanese government even launched apps that show real-time stocks of respiratory masks at nearby stores.
Additionally, the government invested a lot of money in massive testing and rapid contact tracing. “Very careful contact tracing and a very strict quarantine of close contacts is the best way to deal with Covid-19,” said former Taiwan Vice President Chen Chien-jen. The numbers prove him right.
