Lafiel said:
yet with decisive action, like South Korea or Taiwan or Vietnam or Singapore showed, the effects of the outbreak in other countries could've been radically reduced anyway China deserves blame, so do many others |
No dispute there. But the irony in the case of Taiwan, is that they were in a unique position allowing them to distrust the early information coming from both China and the World Health Organization.
"According to the country’s officials, on December 31—the same day that Wuhan health officials announced the discovery of a viral pneumonia with “no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission”—Taiwan wrote to the WHO to request more information about the disease’s potential to pass between humans. They say that the WHO acknowledged receipt of the letter, but did not otherwise respond or share it with WHO member states.
Taiwan took action anyway. Before nightfall on December 31, the country decided to begin health inspections for all passengers arriving on flights from Wuhan. Two weeks later—amid continued reassurances from Chinese and WHO officials that there was no need for alarm—Taiwan dispatched two of its health experts to the city in Hubei province, where they found significant likelihood that the coronavirus was capable of human-to-human transmission. This virus, they reported on January 16, could be far more dangerous than initially assumed, noting that Wuhan’s local doctors were taking the disease very seriously as well.
It would be four more days before the Chinese government officially acknowledged that the virus could be transmitted between humans, on January 20. In the meantime, Wuhan had hosted a 40,000-household dinner to celebrate Lunar New Year and millions of people had left the city for the holiday, dispersing across the country at the worst possible time.
By the time Taiwan confirmed its first case of Covid-19, on January 21, the country was arguably more prepared than any other place in the world. It mobilized its Central Epidemic Command Center—a rapid-response agency formed in the wake of the 2003 SARS outbreak—to implement quarantines and conduct drills at hospitals. Citizens were asked to stay calm and assured that they would all be able to buy surgical masks, as production of the masks was ramped up into millions per day. Soon after, Taiwanese masks were temporarily banned from export.
By contrast, Hubei did not begin its own emergency measures until the day after, when the Chinese health authority was already reporting 440 cases and nine deaths across mainland China.
In spite of its decisive response, Taiwan was shut out of the WHO’s emergency meeting on January 22, where representatives from 16 countries—including the PRC, Japan, South Korea, and the United States—opted to delay declaring the coronavirus a global health emergency.
When the Taiwanese CDC deputy director general, Chuang Jen-hsiang, gave his own press conference in Taipei, a local reporter asked him whether Taiwan was coordinating with the WHO. “We’re not like other countries,” replied Chuang with a pained smile. “We weren’t invited to the meeting. There’s no way for us to get firsthand information.”
https://www.thenation.com/article/world/taiwan-who-coronavirus-china/
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