How Taiwan Succeeded in Containing Its 2021 COVID-19 Outbreak

The severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), or coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19), emerged in December 2019 and has since then progressed into a global pandemic (Lai et al., 2020). However, the Taiwan model helped Taiwan contain the COVID-19 epidemic successfully for more than one year (Wu, 2020). Unexpectedly, sporadic cases began to emerge late April 2021, causing a large-scale COVID-19 outbreak in Taiwan (Kao, Shuhua, et al., 2021).

With the help of technology and reinforced border control, level 3 alert, accessible healthcare system, contact tracing, and quarantines, Taiwan’s Central Epidemic Command Center contained the outbreak successfully within two months with the cooperation of the citizens. After the swift containment of the COVID-19 outbreak in Taiwan, there were significantly fewer locally transmitted COVID-19 cases, and the government and medical care units had become less weary. These measures to contain the outbreak helped Taiwan substantially by buying time to deploy against COVID-19, which is still a worldwide pandemic. Through analyzing Taiwan’s actions taken in containing an ongoing outbreak of COVID-19, better frameworks can be designed for other countries to decelerate the spread of COVID-19 or future emerging respiratory infectious diseases.