Taiwan just went 200 days without a locally transmitted Covid-19 case
As much of the world struggles to contain new waves of the Covid-19 pandemic, Taiwan just marked its 200th consecutive day without a locally transmitted case of the disease. Taipei's response to the coronavirus pandemic has been one of the world's most effective. The island of 23 million people last reported a locally transmitted case on April 12, which was Easter Sunday. As of Thursday, it had confirmed 553 cases -- only 55 of which were local transmissions. Seven deaths have been recorded.
Easter was an important milestone in the United States because President Donald Trump had said a month earlier he wanted the country "opened up and just raring to go" by the holiday. At that point, 1.7 million people had been infected and 110,000 had been killed by the virus -- globally. On Friday, those figures had passed 45 million cases and more than 1.1 million deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University.
Taiwan has never had to enact strict lockdowns. Nor did it resort to drastic restrictions on civil freedoms, like in mainland China. Instead, Taiwan's response focused on speed. Taiwanese authorities began screening passengers on direct flights from Wuhan, where the virus was first identified, on December 31, 2019 -- back when the virus was mostly the subject of rumors and limited reporting.
Taiwan on January 21 banned Wuhan residents from traveling to the island. All passengers arriving from mainland China, Hong Kong and Macao were required to undergo screening. All this happened before Wuhan itself went into lockdown on January 23. By March, Taiwan banned all foreign nationals from entering the island, apart from diplomats, residents and those with special entry visas. The government also invested in mass testing and quick and effective contact tracing.
full article:
https://www.cnn.com/2020/10/29/asia/taiwan-covid-19-intl-hnk/index.html
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