1. Taiwan has established a comprehensive national disease prevention mechanism:Thisincludes digitized disease monitoring systems, stringent border quarantine measures, extensive community-based countermeasures, advanced medical preparedness, an abundant stock of preventive medical appliances and resources, concise guidelines and information for the reference of the general public, and annual disease prevention and control drills. Our central and local governments coordinate with the private sector to jointly prevent the spread of epidemic diseases.
2. Taiwan has abundantexperience in combating epidemic diseases:In the past 60 years and more, Taiwan has overcomeoutbreaks of cholera, malaria, smallpox, tuberculosis, and other communicable diseases, accumulating considerable experience and establishing an extensive disease prevention mechanism. Preventive measures at each working level were further fine-tuned after the SARS outbreak in 2003.
3. Taiwan making across-the-board effort to block influx of communicable diseases: Compared with disease outbreaks around the globe, outbreaks of communicable diseasesin Taiwan have remained relatively low. Monitoring and control systems for outbound and inbound travelers are in place, as is a comprehensive nationwide mechanism designed to follow the development of any outbreak, thus preventingimported diseases from making inroads in Taiwan. The COVID-19 outbreak started toward the end of December 2019;our government’s countermeasures—including expert meetings, and the implementation of policies designed to intercept and block the transmission of diseasesfrom outside of Taiwan’s borders—had already been initiated by early January 2020.
4. Taiwan’s effective disease prevention achievements outperforming many developed countries:Early assessments released by the Center for Systems Science and Engineeringat Johns Hopkins University projected Thailand and Taiwan to have the highest risk of imported COVID-19. However, therehave since been far fewer locally transmitted cases in Taiwan than inmany other developed countries, testifying to Taiwan’s effective disease prevention efforts.
5. Internationally recognized standards of medical service: According to statistics released by the crowd-sourced global databaseNumbeo, Taiwan received the highest rankingfor Health Care Index by Country 2020, with a score of 86.71. For comparison, Korea and Japan were ranked second and third, with scores of 81.97 and 81.14, respectively.
