mandag 6. april 2020

Taiwan's coronavirus response is among the best globally

On January 25, as the world was still waking up to the potential danger of the novel coronavirus spreading rapidly out of central China, two governments recorded four new infections within their territory. Australia and Taiwan have similar sized populations of about 24 million people, both are islands, allowing strict controls over who crosses their borders, and both have strong trade and transport links with mainland China. Ten weeks on from that date, however, Australia has almost 5,000 confirmed cases, while Taiwan has less than 400.

The question is not what Australia did wrong -- 20 countries have more cases than Australia, and seven have more than 10 times as many -- but how Taiwan has kept the virus under control when other parts of the world have not.