Rita Panahi: Taiwan is the real virus success story not Jacinda Ardern
While much of the media fawn over New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern’s economy-destroying restrictions they ignore the greatest coronavirus success story in the world which has been spearheaded by a remarkable woman in Taiwan, writes Rita Panahi.
Rita Panahi
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Jacinda Ardern has won plaudits from the international media for New Zealand’s response to the coronavirus crisi s. Strangely enough Scott Morrison hasn’t featured in the New York Times or The Guardian as the gold standard of how to handle a pandemic.
Don’t get me wrong, Morrison doesn’t deserve plaudits either but by any objective measure Australia has done an even better job in crushing the curve than New Zealand and without inflicting the type of severe lockdown Ardern enforced. As is often the case with Ardern the reality sharply contradicts the media narrative.
But while much of the media, particularly local luvvies, fawn over the New Zealand prime minister they ignore the greatest coronavirus success story in the world and it’s one spearheaded by a remarkable woman, Tsai Ing-wen.
The Taiwanese president has achieved superb results in managing the pandemic with figures the envy of every other nation including Australia and New Zealand.
Taiwan has a population of 24 million and despite its proximity to China has recorded 441 infections and seven deaths at a rate of 0.3 per million of population, compared to about 4 deaths per million for Australia and New Zealand.
Taiwan managed this without employing the sort of restrictions that have devastated the Australian economy. Shops, restaurants and entertainment facilities in Taiwan have remained open though large gatherings, including crowds at sporting events have been banned.
Schools have been open since late February and domestic travel is allowed to keep the economy humming with borders closed to international arrivals.
Contrast that with the economic self-harm practised locally where more than a million people have lost their jobs due to stage three restrictions off the back of modelling that has proven to be laughably wrong.
Even now we have premiers from Queensland to Tasmania to Western Australia – defying the advice of the Australian Chief Medical Officer Brendan Murphy and the expert medical panel advising the national cabinet – closing their state’s borders and ensuring more businesses reliant on the tourism trade become insolvent in the coming weeks and months.
Is it any wonder that an increasing number of medical experts are warning that the impact of the COVID-19 restrictions will, in the medium to long term, cause more harm than the virus itself. Australia and New Zealand have the great fortune of being islands and all but decimated the curve as soon as borders were closed and new arrivals were ordered to complete 14 days of self-isolation. Remarkably these two simple measures have still not been employed in another island nation, the United Kingdom, where the coronavirus death rate stands at 544 per million of population.
Japan is another example of how to respond to a crisis without panicking to the extent that the cure becomes more destructive than the disease. Japan has 126 million people and the world’s oldest population but it has only 830 coronavirus deaths or 7 deaths per million of population. Like Taiwan, Japan did not place onerous restrictions on its citizens or businesses.
The figures show that the economy destroying measures implemented in Australia, though less restrictive than those employed in New Zealand, achieved little in reducing the infection and death rate.
According to Professor Murphy, the critical Reff rate (the virus’ effective reproduction rate) in Australia was well below the target figure of one before stage three lockdown which begs the question why did we destroy so many livelihoods when stage one and two restrictions had been sufficient.
Like Australia and New Zealand, Taiwan has the advantage of being an island that can easily close off its borders. It did that early and was far more diligent than Australia in tracking international arrivals and ensuring they were abiding by self-isolation requirements. Not only were mobile phones traced but every person required to quarantine was called twice a day by a government official to ensure they were safely quarantined. The Taiwanese are also keen mask wearers and socially distanced.
In Australia most coronavirus infections have been from international arrivals but unlike Taiwan instead of focusing on populations that need close monitoring, the decision was made to lockdown the young and healthy along with the vulnerable.
Taiwan closed its borders to international arrivals in mid-March but it began screening passengers from Wuhan from December 31.
On the same day Taiwanese authorities tried to warn the World Health Organisation about the Wuhan virus and the risk of human-to-human transmission. They were ignored. Taiwan has been blocked from joining the WHO to appease China which does not recognise the nation’s sovereignty. We’ll never know how many lives and livelihoods would be saved if the WHO had listened to Taiwan in December instead of regurgitating China’s lies including telling the world in mid-January that there was no evidence of human-to-human transmission.
Rita Panahi is a Herald Sun columnist