Risk Assessment for COVID-19 Pandemic in Taiwan

Jian, Shu-Wan; Kao, Chien-Tse; Chang, Yi-Chia; Chen, Pi-Fang; Liu, Ding-Ping

Background and objectives Event-based surveillance and rapid risk assessment for acute public health events are essential in emerging infectious disease control. Since detecting the unusual signal in Wuhan in December 2019, Taiwan has been aligning risk management to policy planning via conducting regular risk assessments to combat the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). This article aims to provide some insights into Taiwan’s experiences and corresponding actions for the outbreak. Results The COVID-19 risk level in Taiwan was raised to “moderate-to-high” in mid-January 2020 when neighboring countries had reported cases and the human-to-human transmission became obvious. The risk level became “high” on 24 January due to China’s escalating epidemic situation and imposed a lockdown in Wuhan. We learned that the commander recognized the importance of risk assessments and considered advice from the experts was crucial in making the correct decision at the early stage of the crisis. Conclusions Given the surge of COVID-19 cases globally, understanding the evidence-driven mobilizations via detailed risk assessments in Taiwan may be an example worth considering for other countries. We believe that strengthening a global epidemic intelligence network and sharing information timely and transparently are essential for confronting new challenges of COVID-19 and other emerging infectious diseases.