With learnings from SARS, Taiwan wrote the most successful Covid-19 story

 While cities from New York to London to Melbourne went into shutdown, the entirety of Taiwan stayed open for business

I was at Hong Kong international airport the morning the U.S. reported its first case of the virus out of Wuhan, China. News had already been circulating about this deadly new illness in Taiwan, my point of departure, and I spent that layover rushing around looking for the provisions needed to minimize the risk on my flight to New York.

Masks were out of stock but I eventually found a small bottle of sanitizer with a cartoon Shiba Inu dog on the label, an irony I’d later appreciate. At the airline lounge, staff were dismissive of my suggestion that hand sanitizer be made available at the counter to all passengers. I knew that would change.

By the time I landed at JFK airport, Chinese authorities had shut down Wuhan in an admission that this virus was serious and spreading. Yet that move was far too late. Three days earlier Taiwan had already set up its Central Epidemic Command Center, and three weeks prior Taipei sent that now-infamous inquiry to the World Health Organization asking for clarification of this pneumonia-like disease out of China. The WHO downplayed Taiwan’s email and repeated Beijing’s then-stance that there was no human-to-human transmission. But now the virus had landed on American shores and was spreading…Read More