原文
Taiwan Is Exporting Its Coronavirus Successes to the World
Despite being shut out of WHO, Taiwan has largely succeeded in containing the coronavirus. Even as it faces a second wave of infections, it is helping other countries—and bolstering its soft power in the process.
AIPEI—Taiwan has won global praise for its response to the coronavirus pandemic. As the world closes borders and enforces quarantines to combat the outbreak, leaders are looking to Taipei for a model to emulate—and, increasingly, for help.
On March 19, Taiwan closed its borders to nonresidents amid a second wave of imported cases among travelers returning from abroad. The self-governing island now has 379 COVID-19 cases, a number that has remained relatively low due to a series of aggressive containment, quarantine, and monitoring measures that have limited local transmission of the coronavirus.
Taiwan, which is not part of the World Health Organization (WHO), decided to screen all passengers from Wuhan starting on Dec. 31, the same day it learned of the then-unknown virus in the Chinese city. Days later, the WHO was first warned that the virus appeared to transmit by direct human-to-human contact—a statement that was ignored. Taiwan’s 23 million citizens have taken precautions but have refrained from panic, confident in the centralized and consistent flow of information from Taiwan’s Central Epidemic Command Center—set up in immediate response to the virus—and countries such as New Zealand and Israel have said they will use Taiwan’s response to influence their own.
Taiwan, which is not part of the World Health Organization (WHO), decided to screen all passengers from Wuhan starting on Dec. 31, the same day it learned of the then-unknown virus in the Chinese city.
Most of the world, however, was not as proactive as Taiwan in preparing for the coronavirus outbreak. The United States and Europe are scrambling to contain the pandemic as global cases exceed 1.4 million. The Philippines, Taiwan’s southern neighbor, is reeling from an outbreak in Manila that has left its hospitals overburdened, its outlying provinces vulnerable, and its population panicked; other South and Southeast Asian countries are struggling to contain their own outbreaks. For these countries, it’s too late to implement the Taiwanese model; they must rapidly test and treat patients.
But it is not too late for Taiwan to help. Last month, President Tsai Ing-wen said on Twitter that Taiwan is “willing to contribute our capabilities to better protect human health around the world.” On April 1, Taiwan announced it would donate 10 million masks to the United States, 11 European countries, and its diplomatic allies. Taiwan’s foreign ministry said on Thursday that a second batch of six million masks would be donated to countries in Asia, Europe and the Americas.
“Taiwan can, using our resources, help these countries,” said Wang Ting-yu, a legislator with Taiwan’s Democratic Progressive Party.
Wang, who sits on the legislature’s foreign affairs committee, is one of Taiwan’s most vocal adopters of the Twitter hashtag #TaiwanCanHelp. Originally a rallying cry to allow Taiwan to participate in international organizations (including WHO) that stubbornly exclude it at the behest of Beijing, the phrase is now often attached to stories of Taiwan’s success in combating the coronavirus. And while Taiwan is committed to protecting its own population first—experts fear cases could spike again due to the large number of residents returning to Taiwan in the past month—it is striving to provide assistance.
There’s an added benefit as well: Taiwan is eager to strengthen its bilateral relationships after Beijing has pushed it out of global dialogues and poached many of its diplomatic allies, leaving Taipei with only 15. It’s an opportunity for the Tsai administration to pursue its goals of building a diplomatic network for Taiwan on its own, outside the confines of its ties with China.
“We cannot be selfish,” Wang said. “We need to cooperate as fast as possible.”
Last month, Taipei forged a bilateral agreement with the U.S. representative office in Taiwan that would allow masks to be sent to the United States.Last month, Taipei forged a bilateral agreement with the U.S. representative office in Taiwan that would allow masks to be sent to the United States. Wang hopes the agreement is soon replicated with other countries.
Taiwan can also assist other nations with logistics and operations, allocation of production and resources, and the use of data for tracking potentially infected individuals and contact tracing to prevent further spread, said the Stanford Health Policy researcher C. Jason Wang, who co-wrote a recent article in the Journal of the American Medical Association. The article contains a list of 124 actions Taiwan took to combat the outbreak that other countries can pull from, including screening at airports and enforcement of mandatory 14-day quarantines.
Taiwan, like the United States, is a democracy that deals with rampant online misinformation. Unlike the United States, its commitment to clear, unified messaging has kept the public largely confident in official policy and strategies. Even normally controversial monitoring procedures and penalties for spreading false information about the coronavirus have largely escaped harsh scrutiny among a public largely confident in its government’s ability to contain the outbreak.
let us all work together to stop further infection as much as possible,
let us pray that the coronavirus outbreak be over in very short time
wish all of us stay healthy
thank you 作者: checkbox4 時間: 2020-4-13 10:50 PM
