Taiwan’s Coronavirus Response

Quarantines, contact tracing, and wide availability of masks. These are just some of the measures that Taiwan had in place for years that allowed the country to effectively respond to COVID-19. Even with nearly 24 million citizens and diplomatic exclusion from the World Health Organization, Taiwan has had only 451 cases and seven deaths. In a CNBC feature on Taiwan’s coronavirus response, Professor William C. Hsiao—GHELI’s Senior Faculty Scholar—highlighted Taiwan’s “careful” advance warning system for diseases around the world as a part of the country’s success. Hsiao also noted the country’s “community-oriented mentality” that also facilitated a unified response to the pandemic.

Hsiao is the K.T. Li Research Professor of Economics at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, where he has spent over forty years conducting health financing studies, including on single payer systems. Most recently, Professor Hsiao  was named the 2020 recipient of the William B. Graham Prize for Health Services Research, the “highest distinction that researchers in the health services field can achieve.”