Originally posted by the Voice of America.
Voice of America content is produced by the Voice of America,
a United States federal government-sponsored entity, and is in
the public domain.


Why Taiwan Has Just 42 Coronavirus Cases while Neighbors Report Hundreds or
Thousands

Ralph Jennings

   TAIPEI, TAIWAN - Taiwan sits near Japan, China and South Korea, three
   countries with some of the world's worst outbreaks of the deadly
   coronavirus, but the island itself has just 42 isolated cases.

   Chalk it up to extra early, effective preparedness, analysts and
   policymakers say -- so effective that people's approval of the
   government unexpectedly soared last month.

   Taiwanese health officials saw the virus taking shape in the central
   Chinese Wuhan in December and began checking passengers who flew in
   from there. They also cut off flights from much of China, the outbreak
   origin, before a lot of peers around Asia did.

   Now almost every public building in Taipei offers hand sanitizer and a
   lot of them, such as schools, require that anyone entering submit to a
   fever check. Taiwan's Centers for Disease Control announces any new
   cases every day. In February it began rationing facemask purchases to
   head off panic buying.

   "With the hit from Wuhan pneumonia, most people originally figured
   Taiwan was going to be miserable this time because of ties with
   mainland China are so close, and that it couldn't be avoided," said You
   Ying-lung, chairman of the Taiwanese Public Opinion Foundation polling
   agency, using a local term for the disease officially dubbed COVID-19.

   "But as the things became clear, it turned out Taiwan wasn't so
   miserable and in fact compared to other countries in the world, it's
   got the best performance," he said.

   The government first took notice of the virus in December as people in
   China began talking about it informally. In response, the Centers for
   Disease Control started onboard quarantine of all direct flights from
   Wuhan on December 31. The centers said on its website that by January 9
   it had "inspected" 14 flights with 1,317 passengers and attendants.

   The disease caught the attention of other countries in late January.
   Although numbers of new cases are dropping in China, Japan and South
   Korea are grappling with recent outbreaks.

.