(Mostly) COVID-19-free in Taiwan
Nation holds firm on quarantines and entry restrictions
TAIPEI, Taiwan — Consider for a moment, in this time of anguish and loss and death, of mass unemployment and flattened national economies, the “Twilight Zone” alternate reality that is Taiwan.
For month, life on the island has been, in a word, normal — spookily so. Weddings have been held worry-free. People have packed pro ballgames, attended concerts and thronged night markets. Taiwan’s population is larger than Florida’s, but its COVID-19 death toll can be counted on two hands.
It is the kind of off-the-charts success against the virus that has created a sinking feeling in the stomachs of many residents: How much longer can the island’s good fortune last?
For Chen Shih-chung, Taiwan’s health minister and head of its epidemic command center, success is all the more reason not to waver on the bedrock of the government’s coronavirus strategy. The island has been sealed off to most visitors since March. People who are allowed to enter still have to quarantine under tight watch for two weeks, including Taiwanese citizens.
The high walls have kept the island from being deluged with infections, but they risk isolating Taiwan economically and politically if the rest of the world relaxes its defenses as vaccinations get underway.
The government is not likely to budge on those policies until there are vaccines that are a proven, lasting weaponagainst the virus, Chen said in an interview. Taiwan will not be like one of those places, he suggested, that eased lockdowns under public pressure only to have to tighten them again later.
“I believe there will be another wave,” he said. “Because everybody thinks, ‘ I’ve gotten the vaccine,’ or, ‘ I’m getting the vaccine next week. I’ve waited so long, I can be free now, right?’ ”
Once there is more evidence about whether the current vaccines offer enduring immunity, “only then can we really start to relax a bit,” he said.
As vaccinations begin around the globe, the question of how and when to ease COVID border
controls will also confront other places, such as Australia and New Zealand, that have used their geographic insularity as a primary defense against the pandemic.
Taiwan has already held fast to its entry restrictions and quarantines for much longer than many governments could without facing public backlash. The island’s economy has slowed along with the world’s during the pandemic, but it continues to grow at a decent clip.
Japan and South Korea, two other Asian democracies praised for their virus responses, are now grappling with large flare-ups of new infections.
But as successful and tireless as Taiwan’s health officials have been, the island has also benefited from sheer good luck, said C. Jason Wang, an associate professor at Stanford University School of Medicine.
With the case count surging globally and a more contagious variant of the virus circulating in many places, greater numbers of infected people are bound to arrive at Taiwan’s borders, Wang said, which means it is only a matter of time before more positive cases slip past the government’s defenses.
Taiwan last week confirmed its first case involving the new vari
ant, in a person who had entered from Britain, tested positive and been hospitalized. In response, the government further tightened its entry bans and quarantine rules.
“It’s remarkable that Taiwan has held the line for so long,” Wang said. But even if the island vaccinates its population by the middle of 2021, “then you’ve still got six months to go,” he said. “It’s really difficult to keep this up for another six months.”
Taiwan’s emphasis on strict quarantines has helped contain infections without overwhelming its hospital system or incurring huge costs for testing. But some experts are now urging the
government to test more widely, particularly at the border, to catch more cases that do not show symptoms.
“We came up with many of our policies when there were a few million infections around the world,” said Chan Chang-chuan, a professor at the College of Public Health at National Taiwan University. “But now there are tens of millions, and we’re heading toward 100 million. It’s a whole different stage.”
Chan said he believed Taiwan should begin testing everyone at the border, not just quarantining them. It has already started doing this for people arriving from Brit
ain, where the more transmissible variant of the coronavirus has been found to be circulating.
Taiwan’s position has been that carriers of the virus who are asymptomatic after 14 days of isolation are not likely to be very infectious.
Chen said he had no doubt that there had been some asymptomatic cases that never made it onto the government’s radar.
“But if those infections are not causing problems, then should I spend a lot of energy trying to find those people?” he said. “Or should I focus my efforts on infections that are already causing problems?”