When trying to contain an outbreak of an infectious disease such as COVID-19, there are bound to be leaks, but the key question is whether those leaks can be patched and prevented from growing into major breaches.
The answer depends on whether the overall epidemic prevention system is solid.
Former minister of health and welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中), who had been in charge of Taiwan’s fight against COVID-19 as head of the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC), resigned on Monday last week to concentrate on his campaign as the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) Taipei mayoral candidate in the Nov. 26 local elections. Chen’s campaign team includes DPP Legislator Fan Yun (范雲) and independent Legislator Freddy Lim (林昶佐).
This lineup has prompted the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) to call Chen’s team the “Taipei breach team,” dusting off old accusations based on the minutes of a meeting in which the so-called “3+11” policy was agreed upon, whereby airline pilots returning to Taiwan could undergo a shortened quarantine of three days followed by 11 days of self-health management, as opposed to 14 days of quarantine and seven days of self-health management for other arrivals.
The KMT is also harking back to Vice Minister of Health and Welfare Shih Chung-liang’s (石祟良) statement that Taipei’s Wanhua District (萬華) was at the center of breach in Taiwan’s defenses against the disease.
The KMT is apparently trying to let the real culprit behind a serious COVID-19 outbreak in Taipei in May last year off the hook, and shift the blame to Chen and Fan.
It has long since been proven that the Wanhua outbreak had nothing to do with the 3+11 policy. Genome sequencing results of SARS-CoV-2 samples taken from China Airlines pilots and cases linked to people who had visited a tea house in the district did not match.
Furthermore, an investigation into the outbreak showed that there was no overlap between the movements of infected pilots and cases linked to Wanhua. No amount of political bluster can negate this ironclad scientific evidence.
The genome of a sample taken from case No. 1,091, a China Airlines pilot, was identical to those of cases in clusters linked to the Novotel Taipei Taoyuan International Airport hotel, an amusement arcade in Yilan County’s Luodong Township (羅東) and a Lions Club branch in New Taipei City’s Lujhou District (蘆洲).
However, the quarantine and self-health management protocol for those cluster cases was 5+9, not 3+11.
The KMT’s corny show of intentionally shifting the blame is highly irrational and a turn-off for rational Taiwanese. The party’s antics will only put a smile on the face on the person who was truly to blame for the breach.
Taiwan’s quarantine measures for incoming travelers were never going to be leakproof. The 3+11, 5+9 and 14+7 models could not guarantee 100 percent containment of the virus.
However, leaks in an epidemic control policy do not mean that full-blown breaches will necessarily arise.
Infected people travel domestically, but this has proven to be no big problem in some towns, but a disaster in others. Population density could be one reason, but other factors such as cultural and behavioral issues, and infrastructure quality can also determine whether the virus will spread in a community.
The decisive factor is the quality of urban governance.
Why did the outbreak in May last year affect Taipei and New Taipei City most severely? Why did the major breach occur in Wanhua? Apart from reasons that everyone knows, such as population density, location and the flow of people, the main reason is that Wanhua has been shortchanged by the municipal governance of Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) of the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP).
Ko is the one to blame for the Wanhua breach.
It might be part of the KMT’s election campaign strategy that it deliberately overlooks the responsibility that should be borne by Ko. The KMT might be competing with Taipei Deputy Mayor Vivian Huang (黃珊珊), the TPP’s Taipei mayoral candidate, over who can bash the DPP candidate the hardest and thereby win over “deep blue” voters, even if it means being highly irrational.
If swing voters realize that the real reason for the breach was Ko’s negligent municipal governance, how could they vote for KMT Legislator Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安) in the Taipei election or for Huang, who has been Ko’s right hand?
The CECC’s mode of decisionmaking is certainly open to discussion and review, but last year’s COVID-19 outbreak has been proven to have nothing to do with the 3+11 quarantine policy, so why should Fan or Lin be dragged into it?
Shih Wen-yi is a former deputy director-general of the Centers for Disease Control.
Translated by Julian Clegg
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