80 miles from China, Taiwan stayed open, closed no businesses—and has had just 400 cases of COVID-19, and only 6 deaths
Mark Crispin Miller
TAIWAN: No Lockdowns, No Closed Businesses, Non-WHO Member, and Relatively Unaffected by COVID-19
by Brian Shilhavy
Editor, Health Impact News
Johns Hopkins University had predicted that Taiwan would have the second most COVID-19 cases in the world, due to its close proximity to Mainland China.
But astonishingly, in spite of being only 80 miles from the coast of China with over 400,000 of its 24 million citizens working in China, as of mid-April, the country only had 400 cases of COVID-19, and only 6 deaths. And the vast majority of their 400 cases came into the country from abroad.
All of this has happened without shutting down the country with lock downs, and with almost all of its businesses continuing to operate. Is Taiwan doing something else the rest of the world is largely missing?
This question will no doubt be asked for months or even years into the future, but it is a question well worth asking, given the devastating effects to the economy that have resulted from more restrictive measures such as the United States took.
The first thing to note is that while President Trump is now looking seriously at pulling out of the World Health Organization, Taiwan was never part of it. They were not allowed to join due to the WHO’s pro-China stance.
According to the Taipei Times, Taiwan’s CDC tried to warn China and WHO on December 31, 2019 about possible human-to-human transmission of the new coronavirus, while China was still denying that such transmission was possible.
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