IS TAIWAN'S IMPRESSIVE RESPONSE TO COVID-19 POSSIBLE IN SRI LANKA?

We’re just about to find out how hard it’s going to be

- Lionel Wijesiri

Taiwan has never forgotten the nightmare of a 2003 epidemic - SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) which devastated many East Asian metropolises. In its wake, Taiwan along with few others doubled down on preparing for any future crisis.

And when COVID -19 hit them, they were ready.

Today, Taiwan has had brought COVID -19 outbreak under control - and without resorting to China’s measures.

Although copying other countries’ techniques used in handling COVID19 may not be the right solution for us, it is natural enough for a common Sri Lankan citizen to look at Taiwan’s example and wonder why we didn’t do what they did, or, more pertinently, could we have done what they did?

TAIWAN’S STRUGGLE

Taiwan is an island like ours with 23 million people just off the coast of China. However, unlike Sri Lanka, it is densely populated. While Sri Lanka has 340 people per sq. km., Taiwan has 642 per sq.km. Mainly because of two factors – close proximity to China and population density, Taiwan was predicted by global health experts to become heavily impacted by COVID-19.

There were also other reasons for such a prediction. Over 850,000 Taiwanese were residing and working in mainland China. Some 2.71 million mainland Chinese visited Taiwan in 2019, and in January there were a dozen round trip flights between Wuhan and Taipei every week. On top of these, the timing of the outbreak coinciding with Chinese New Year, one of the busiest travel times of the year.

But despite all these serious vulnerabilities, Taiwan has managed, so far, to keep well ahead of the infection curve through a combination of early response, pervasive screening, contact tracing, comprehensive testing, and the adroit use of technology.