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ARE there better ways than total lockdown to beat virulent infectious diseases?   By now, it is pretty sure total lockdown is not the future any Sabahan or anybody in the world wants!

By demolishing the economy to keep the virus out, some people argue that the cure is worse than the disease.

There are no lack of intellectual voices who criticise the extreme draconian measures as out of proportion.   So apocalyptic crisis warrants a serious search for better ways.

Nipping outbreaks at the bud?

Sure enough, out of this bad experience, at least one government, Taiwan, that is had managed to nip the outbreak in the bud while China and South Korea had come from behind to emerge victors in this titanic war against the viral attack.

In this first  Daily Express attempt to explore an alternative to total lockdown, the clear success story of Taiwan’s early intervention kept the damage to the minimum from the current Covid-19 pandemic may well be the future-forward, as we shall see. Not that I know better.

Journalists have the duty to highlight proven alternative measures irrespective of politics to help spare the world another hysterical and panicky global response that looks so disproportinate to the threats like this which probably could have been avoided in the first place. 

Insight of British journalist from inside China

By chance, I bumped into a video clip produced by Shenzhen-based Barrett Channel operated by two Britons Barrett-Jackson.

Is China’s three-month virus war also  exemplary?

Yes and no.

From scrambling to understand to quick drastic actions Clearly caught by surprise, its initial fumble isn’t but the radical reversal and victory means yes: Barret explains. “When the outbreak started in China this is a very, very new novel disease which hadn’t been seen before so the Chinese were scrambling to find out more about it but  as soon as they realised it was very contagious and easily  spread from one person to another, China took pretty drastic actions relatively quickly in my opinion,” Barrett noted.

Taiwanese attitude a big contrast to US & UK

But outside China?

Barrett cited very sharp contrast in attitude between Taiwan, South Korea, the United State and The United Kingdom. He said: “What I find strange is all the other countries have a head start of six to eight weeks to see how it is developing in China, what methods they used in China which had shared a lot of data about the spread and about how it moves from person to person yet it seemed outside China hadn’t heeded these warnings, hadn’t looked at the information carefully, a couple of countries like South Korea, Singapore they went in aggressively testing and quarantine and it paid off as the cases reduced.”

A model  central command centre for future response?

Barrett singled out Taiwan as the model for future responses to nip outbreaks in the bud! As soon as they heard the news in December 2019, they grasped what was coming! Bad experience with SARS in 2003 prompted them to board planes from Wuhan to check for fever and Pneumonia symptoms before passengers could deplane.

As a result, Taiwan had only 382 cases and only six deaths, contrary to initial predictions that it would be the hardest hit outside Mainland China but the impact turned out to be shockingly low.   “Why Taiwan had contained it so well because after they had SARS outbreak in 2003, they set up a Central Command Centre and even before anybody  even the World Health Organisation  declared anything Taiwan was already testing flights in from China, as Taiwan get a lot of travel between Taiwan and China – a huge amount of 3 million tourists from China every year and one million Taiwanese in reverse  traffic because of the geographic location but the cases are very few because they  started testing  even in December 2019, they were testing people on flights arriving from China. The Central Command controlled things they coordinated everything. This is because they invested and put money in that unlike countries which don’t have this sort of central ability to respond .”

Clear benchmark preventive measure from Taiwan

So here is a clear benchmark which the Taiwanese had set for the rest of the world to nip any outbreak in the bud.                     Wuhan actually recorded its first patient as early as December 1, 2019.

And by 5 January, Chinese researchers in Shanghai had mapped out the novel SARS-CoV-2 genome and recommended appropriate prevention and control measures in public places.

These findings were not disclosed and Taiwan wasn’t aware of it but they never waited for complete information and started expanding checks to include anybody who had travelled to Wuhan in the past 14 days and had fever or symptoms of upper respiratory tract infection at the point of entry.   Suspected cases were screened for 26 viruses including SARS and Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS).

Anybody displaying symptoms of fever and coughing  were quarantined at home  and assessed whether medical attention at a hospital was necessary.

Swift and decisive actions

The Journal of the American Medical Association  credited  the Taiwanese government with recognising  the crisis early, especially its swift and decisive actions In contrast, the UK was ”very reactive not  proactive,  schools were still open, people could easily travel on public transport , many crowded venues, cinemas remained opened. The USA was in a state of denial, I listened to Trump  who said it was another flu and it will go away, people can’t get tested because there wasn’t enough test kits,” Barrett noted.

But the Covid-19 infection had largely spared Taiwan with only 382 cases and six deaths compared to 81,593 cases and 3,339 deaths in the Mainland. So what’s Taiwan’s secret to beat all predictions that it would get the most cases outside the Mainland ?

Many international health experts credit this to Taiwan’s quick early preparations  and early interventions.

Learning  from the hard lessons of SARS

Professor Chuanhui Chi, a public health professor at the Oregan State University said : “ Due to the hard lessons that Taiwan learned during the SARS epidemic in 2003, it is more prepared for the Coronavirus outbreak  than many other countries.”

Soon after the number of coronavirus cases  began to rise in mainland China, it banned travel of visitors from China, Hong Kong, and Macau.

Taiwan leveraged the strength of its manufacturing sector and invested about US$6.8 million  to create 60 new production lines.

“This increased Taiwan’s daily mask production capacity from 1.8 million masks to 8 million masks,” Prof Chi noted.

Tracking  mandatory quarantine

IN a paper published in the Journal of American  Medical Association, Dr Jason Wang, a public health expert at the Stanford University said the use of technology to track the whereabouts of those under quarantine counted.

They tracked people with their phone which allows them to make sure all individuals who are supposed to go through the mandatory quarantine are not violating the rules but sneaking out of their quarantine locations.

On the other hand, the government also provided support for those under quarantine, in terms of food  or books beside US$30  daily allowance to those affected by the quarantine  during the two weeks.

“This gives the Taiwanese people the incentive to report their symptoms honestly, “ Prof Wang noted.            

Next Sunday, we’ll look at what China and South Korea did to beat the Covid-19 outbreak.