What Might High-Income Countries Learn from Taiwan's Successful Health Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic?

Approaches to preventing or mitigating the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic have varied markedly between nations. We examined the approach up to July 2020 taken by two countries which had successfully eliminated COVID-19: Taiwan and New Zealand (NZ). Both jurisdictions experienced the COVID-19 pandemic in the first half of 2020. Taiwan reported a lower COVID-19 incidence rate (19.0 cases per million) compared with NZ (235.5 per million). Extensive public health infrastructure established in Taiwan pre-COVID-19 enabled a fast coordinated response, particularly in the domains of early screening, effective methods for isolation/quarantine, and digital technologies for identifying potential cases. This timely and vigorous response allowed Taiwan to avoid the national lockdown used by NZ and the majority of high-income countries. Many of Taiwan’s pandemic control components could potentially be adopted by other high-income jurisdictions.