A paper published in the latest issue of JAMA: The Journal of the American Medical Association praises the government’s response measures to COVID-19, Centers for Disease Control Deputy Director-General Chuang Jen-hsiang (莊人祥) said yesterday.
The paper, authored by C. Jason Wang (王智弘), an associate professor of pediatrics and director of Stanford University’s Center for Policy, Outcomes and Prevention, introduces Taiwan’s response measures to the coronavirus from three aspects: big data analytics, new technology and proactive testing, Chuang told a news conference at the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) in Taipei.
Taiwan was expected to have the second-highest number of COVID-19 cases due to its close proximity to China, the large volume of cross-strait air traffic, the 850,000 Taiwanese residing in China and its 2.71 million Chinese visitors last year, the paper says.
Photo: Wu Liang-yi, Taipei Times
However, Taiwan has been on constant alert and ready to act on epidemics originating from China since the SARS outbreak in 2003, it says.
The paper only includes information up to Feb. 24, when only 30 confirmed cases had been reported in Taiwan, which then had the 10th-highest number of cases among nations affected by the coronavirus, Chuang said.
With 42 confirmed cases as of yesterday, Taiwan is 16th in number of confirmed cases among affected nations, demonstrating that its ranking has fallen amid a number of outbreaks worldwide, he said.
Taiwan was quick to recognize and manage the crisis, implementing border control, case identification, containment and resource allocation measures, as well as frequently communicating with and educating the public while fighting misinformation, the paper says.
The paper introduces the CECC and its actions, including conducting onboard health assessments of passengers on direct flights from Wuhan, China — the epicenter of the epidemic — from as early as Dec. 31 last year and recording people’s travel history in the National Health Insurance system, which has allowed physicians to identify high-risk people.
The CECC has also controlled the allocation and price of masks, used government funds to increase mask production and held daily media briefings to reassure and educate the public, it says.
“Understanding the action items that were implemented quickly in Taiwan and assessing the effectiveness of these actions in preventing a large-scale epidemic may be instructive for other countries,” the paper says.
“Although we still face many challenges ahead as the battle against COVID-19 continues, we are grateful that the academic wrote the paper to allow the world to know the efforts being made in Taiwan,” Chuang said.
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