It is astonishing how differently the COVID-19 pandemic has transpired in Taiwan than in other countries with equal, or what should have been equal, disease prevention capabilities.
When Taiwan largely kept the virus at its borders for most of the pandemic, it was a laudable success, but it eventually proved elusive and a few days in May brought a persistent domestic outbreak, plunging Taiwan into the “normal” of the international pandemic.
Even though the government has made mistakes, no reasonable person with knowledge of the world outside Taiwan could have believed that the nation’s defenses would continue doing a perfect-enough job forever.
Unfortunately, forever is how long COVID-19 might be staying, as there are more indicators that the virus could become endemic in the places where it is running rampant — in the US, Europe, large parts of Asia and elsewhere — or simply put: in today’s globalized world.
That scenario might be hard to stomach, maybe especially for Taiwan.
The nation should be commended for striving to return to the COVID-19 situation of before May, and those who have spent the past one-and-a-half years here might be excused for thinking that if countries had reacted to their outbreaks a little bit more like Taiwan, maybe the world would be talking about the virus in the past tense.
However, it is more likely that some trends the world has seen in the past 18 months are to continue. People will continue to contract the Delta variant, and possibly future variants, of SARS-CoV-2; COVID-19 vaccine development will continue; and, unfortunately, vaccine hesitancy and a widespread unwillingness to follow prevention common sense will persist — at the state and individual levels.
Luckily, Taiwan shows relatively few signs of vaccine hesitancy. In other parts of the world, people’s individual politics often determine whether they get the vaccine, while Taiwanese “only” bicker over which vaccine brand is the best, in terms of protection, safety or, indeed, politics.
A time will surely come when most Taiwanese are vaccinated, but large parts of the world will not be, whether due to self-inflicted reasons or procurement issues, as many poorer countries are having greater difficulty than Taiwan.
The best-case scenario is that vaccines — the ones available or future vaccines — will adequately protect a widely vaccinated Taiwanese public, and those in other places who have gotten the jab.
However, a constant groundswell of infection might persist around the world, and there might be hospitalizations and fatalities on a level that many societies eventually deem normal and bearable.
How would Taiwan deal with that scenario?
For now, Taiwan might return to zero daily domestic cases — or “near-enough” zero — but the rest of the world might not, and it might not even aspire to.
Endemic COVID-19 might become a normal part of life, and remain part of every form of international exchange.
Under endemic COVID-19 conditions, would the time come that a certain level of herd immunity — which would not root out the worldwide transmission of the virus, but would reduce its impact — could be considered enough for Taiwan to allow the nation and its residents to return to international travel, restaurant dining, social gatherings and all of the things that make life worth living, if there are more, maybe significantly more, than zero cases?
Now might not be the time for that, not when only about 35 percent of Taiwanese have partial protection through vaccines.
For now, Taiwan will hopefully settle into a rhythm of single-digit daily case counts, but will the nation, once there is adequate herd immunity, be able to deal with the stubborn little outbreaks that will inevitably occur without returning to near-enough zero cases as the only possible goal?
Will Taiwan’s political camps agree on a time to let go of that goal and come up with smart ways to mitigate COVID-19, or will every small outbreak, even with herd immunity, prompt another round of political infighting over who has the correct, and only, strategy to reach zero cases?
At some point, a perfect score, and all that is necessary to keep it, will stop bringing meaningful benefits. For now it has advantages, but Taiwanese should talk about under what conditions a perfect score might stop having benefits, and how to cope with COVID-19 at that time.
The nation needs to have a conversation about the possibility of a post-pandemic world in which COVID-19 is still around.
Chris van Laak is a copy editor at the Taipei Times.
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