Taiwan needs to take up a core role in helping the world detect and tackle the next pandemic, a former US government official said.
Matt Pottinger, a former US deputy national security adviser who served in the administration of former US president Donald Trump, made the remark during an interview with the Taipei Times and its sister newspaper the Liberty Times on Friday.
Matt Pottinger and his wife, Yen Pottinger, former HIV Incidence Team lead at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), shared their views on the lessons the world could learn from the COVID-19 pandemic.
Photo: Tien Yu-hua, Taipei Times
Asked about Taiwan’s handling of the pandemic, Matt Pottinger said that “no country did better than Taiwan.”
Taiwan imposed border controls very quickly, manufactured and distributed high-quality masks, performed contact-tracing operations that are consistent with privacy rights and encouraged the public to seek medical care in time, he said.
Yen Pottinger said that, in contrast with Taiwan, the speed with which China dismantled its “zero COVID-19” policy “has come as a shock” and showed Beijing’s irresponsibility, as it stopped publishing daily COVID-19 data last month and reopened its borders on Sunday.
She also warned of a “major case increase” as Chinese are expected to travel home to visit their families during the Lunar New Year holiday.
Some are concerned that the large number of infections in China would lead to a new variant, as the country has low vaccine coverage, she said, adding that “the virus can surprise us.”
To be prepared for the next pandemic, “we can’t rely on the WHO to respond effectively,” Matt Pottinger said.
Instead, democratic countries with enough medical and biological capabilities should create a new organization to compensate for the failures of the WHO, he said, adding: “Taiwan needs to be a core member” of it.
The pandemic exposed the shortcomings of the WHO, Yen Pottinger said, adding that any new coalition should include a quick response team that would be allowed to conduct investigations in other countries to clarify the situation without being influenced by politics.
Members of the proposed coalition should work together to share information and conduct biosurveillance, which is a concept that would be taken more seriously this year, Matt Pottinger said.
The US government included specific provisions for improving biodetection and biosurveillance in its latest national security strategies, which were published in the fall, to map out dangerous pathogens around the world, he said.
Taiwan can help detect the emergence of dangerous pathogens, formulate an international response to them and draw up new international guidelines on laboratory safety, he added.
If COVID-19 is proven to have leaked from a laboratory, it would mean “there was a failure in lab safety,” Yen Pottinger said.
Global standards are needed to regulate experimental facilities and pathogens, as the risks of conducting certain research might outweigh the benefits, she said.
“It’s not enough for WHO to put out guidelines,” she said, adding that a global organization is needed to inspect laboratories, like the CDC does for its domestic labs, she said.
“We’re overdue for starting that process,” Matt Pottinger said, adding that it “has to start with democracies.”
Although it is not possible to predict the pathogen that might cause the next pandemic, antimicrobial resistance poses an imminent threat to humanity, Yen Pottinger said.
In addition, influenza viruses are “always a big threat” as one mutation can completely change the way they can infect people, she said.
Matt Pottinger and Yen Pottinger are to give a speech titled “The Origin and Management of COVID-19: Views from the US Front Line” tomorrow at 10am at the Mandarin Oriental hotel in Taipei.
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