Taiwan is (still) spared from the wave of COVID-19 that is inflaming Asia. The keys to the success of this good student? Follow-up of contacts, border control and adhesion of the population. But getting out of “zero COVID” practices is going to be difficult…
In Taipei, QR codes are now an integral part of the landscape: every business displays one in its window. Before entering, any customer scans it with their phone, which automatically sends a text message to 1922, the local Public Health number. “I do it, although it is painful, since it can help control the virus,” explains Chieh-Ju, a 30-year-old living in the Taiwanese capital who still says she is worried about the protection of her personal data.
If she tests positive for COVID soon, her movements over the past 14 days will be dissected, and people who may have come into contact with her traced.
Behind this very simple innovation launched in 2021 and named “1922 SMS” is the group of computer hackers g0v, which has given itself the mission of making the government more transparent, and from which the current Minister of Digital, Audrey Tang, comes. . 1922 SMS respects the privacy of users, assures this self-proclaimed anarchist: “The content of the text message [localisation, numéro de téléphone et heure] is stored by the mobile network operator. It can only be used to track contacts and send notifications, and must be deleted after 28 days. »
This system based on everyone’s participation is above all less cumbersome than other measures used to contain the virus in Taiwan. Cellular signals and video surveillance images are in particular requested to ensure that those arriving from abroad respect the long mandatory quarantine (recently reduced from 14 to 10 days). Border control is very strict, which is easy on an island: with a few exceptions, only residents can enter the territory. But the results are there: every day for the past two years, many cases have been intercepted in this way.
When the Omicron variant made its way to Taiwan, there were fears that cases would explode like elsewhere. Yet at the peak of what was ultimately a ripple, there were only a few dozen daily cases from community transmission of the virus. All potential sources of contamination were neutralized in record time. Enough to confirm what everyone has known since 2020: with barely 853 deaths for 23 million inhabitants and despite late access to vaccines, Taiwan’s management of the pandemic is a success.
An example for the world
The small Asian state has experienced only one “real” wave of COVID-19, in May 2021, and it would be the envy of many heavily bereaved countries: there were a maximum of 500 new cases per day. Restaurant dining rooms were then closed for a few weeks, but no confinement was imposed.
We can put this good record into perspective by recalling that it was built on yesterday’s failure: in the early 2000s, Taiwan was a bad student during the SARS epidemic. The disorganization led to 73 deaths, according to the Taiwan Centers for Disease Control (compared to 349 for China, 60 times more populous), but the lesson was learned: since then, an ultra-preventive approach is used as soon as a virus emerges. the tip of his nose.
In January 2020, while Western countries were sending masks to China, Taiwan banned their export. Already, the g0v collective was getting hands-on by mapping the stocks in the various pharmacies. Then a rationing system was put in place: each citizen could buy a few masks a week in a neighborhood convenience store on presentation of their health insurance card.
Since then (and apart from the pandemic peak of mid-2021), a form of normality has taken hold. The places that were crowded in 2019 are still crowded in 2022, the difference being in the application of a few health rules. Wearing a mask is the most emblematic of them, since it is compulsory even outdoors from the age of two – it is not uncommon to see parents being zealous in imposing it on their infants .
The local press, however, is full of stories testifying to the anxiety of a population that has never really come to grips with the virus. Like those furious men from a coastal village who threw bottles at the home of an infected mother and daughter. Or the school that fired an American teacher after he tested positive during his quarantine.
A strategy there for good?
Despite the lower lethality of the Omicron variant, the health authorities are still as intransigent. French journalist based in Taipei, Adrien Simorre noticed it on Sunday March 13: while he was in quarantine at home and showed no symptoms, his self-test turned out to be positive. An ambulance rushed him to a small hotel room, with a surveillance camera trained on him. “I was not told how long I was going to stay, I felt it was difficult to ask questions,” he says. His lot improved after he told his misadventure on Twitter: he was transferred to a quarantine center, where he enjoyed a little more privacy, but where he still stayed for ten days.
In quarantine at home after my return from France, I self-tested positive on the 5th day (without symptoms).
Result: ambulance ride with screaming sirens, and 8-day isolation in a hospital room where a surveillance camera is pointed at my bed. pic.twitter.com/JSkDG3tWW7
— Adrien Simorre (@AdrienSimorre) March 13, 2022
“The ‘zero COVID’ approach has brought both health and economic benefits, and has been popular where it has been implemented”, noted in July 2021 a report by the Economist Intelligence Unit, but “this policy will become unsustainable when the global economy reopens”. The epidemic outbreaks in China and Hong Kong also demonstrate the limits of this strategy in the face of a more contagious variant.
In Taiwan, who will guess for how long it will remain relevant. No horizon has been drawn as to the removal of the compulsory mask: the last relaxation dates from the end of February, and authorizes the face uncovered during sports activities, or when one is alone in the car.
Timid calls for a change of approach are emerging all the same. Thus, the tourist industry would like to see the quarantine fall. It will not be for 2022: if we trust the words of the Minister of Health, it could be gradually shortened, but probably not eliminated. A funny paradox, the publishing house Lonely Planet has ranked Taipei as the second city in the world to visit in 2022, in particular because of its ability to contain COVID… but the Taiwanese capital risks remaining inaccessible to foreign tourists for quite some time.