Although it is right next door from China; Taiwan being an isolated island also contributes to the success of keeping significantly low on confirmed cases from the Coronavirus. The lesson was learned in a hard way but deploying ahead of what the situation was according to WHO definitely contributes to saving Taiwan from a severe outbreak. “WHO cares” became “who cares”. The distractibility of WHO when dealing with the Coronavirus was on how little and how late that it responded.

It is always time like this that examines how a government and its people react during a crisis, and this time, the world is faced with Coronavirus, with no jokes aside. Many mainstream media in the West have reported success stories on how Taiwan is doing successfully during the Coronavirus crisis, especially because it was estimated that Taiwan would have been in a severe and disastrous situation as the nearest point across the Taiwan Straits from China is only 130 Kilometer away; with most inbound frequent travelers coming from China before Coronavirus outbreak.

 

With the least trust in the honesty of the Chinese government from so many previous experiences when dealing with transparency on important information, and the left-along situation by the international organizations during SARS 17 years ago. This time with the Coronavirus outbreak, the Taiwan government deployed various percussions in advance and established the reinforcement even before the first Coronavirus case was confirmed in Taiwan.

From the beginning of the deployment, Taiwan was the first country in the world that started to scream people who were traveling from China at the border control even before the official name of the virus was found; at the same time percussions of the virus such as sanitizing, wearing masks in public were advertised through the media.

As the virus developed, foreseeing the crisis is worse than the Chinese government would claim, the Taiwan government was also first in the world to establish masks distributing systems as well as did its best to bust up the production to avoid hoarding of the masks and hikes on the prices, so that everyone in the country was, and still is, able to get medical masks at the price of 5 NT dollars (0.17 USD) per mask.

One could say it was the familiarizing of China’s doing on their “face-saving”, “concealing of information” that helped Taiwan to do extraordinary when facing the Coronavirus so far. Now that the virus is devastating the entire world especially among the European countries, with cities and borders being shut down. Local communities in Taiwan are still safe and far from being shut down.

One of the main percussions being taken is that people in Taiwan are not unfamiliar with wearing masks, which avoids touching of mouth and nose as well as the spreading of viruses. It is not unusual to see people walking down the streets, riding a bike/scooter, or going to public spaces with masks. When wearing a mask, people become more aware of self-hygiene such as sterilizing hands and objects that are frequently touched; also more aware of social distancing especially in the public areas.

It did not take only one week or one month for people in Taiwan to be so cautious about self-protection from the virus. It took decades of health, hygiene development, the increase in the national health care system in providing and educating the knowledge when facing droplet transmitted viruses, as well as established the world-class medical system.

Although it is right next door from China; Taiwan being an isolated island also contributes to the success of keeping significantly low on confirmed cases from the Coronavirus. The lesson was learned in a hard way but deploying ahead of what the situation was according to WHO definitely contributes to saving Taiwan from a severe outbreak. “WHO cares” became “who cares”. The distractibility of WHO when dealing with the Coronavirus was on how little and how late that it responded.

Being a success story when it comes to fighting the Coronavirus, Taiwan is definitely not a coincident or miracle. Everything Taiwan learned, it learned from the hardest way.

Author / Cathy Lin