Proactive and blended approach for COVID-19 control in Taiwan

Cheng, Hao-Yuan; Huang, Angela Song-En

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has become the greatest threat to human society in a century. To better devise control strategies, policymakers should adjust policies based on scientific evidence in hand. Several countries have limited the epidemics of COVID-19 by prioritizing containment strategies to mitigate the impacts on public health and healthcare systems. However, asymptomatic/pre-symptomatic transmission of COVID-19 complicated traditional symptom-based approaches for disease control. In addition, drastic population-based interventions usually have significant societal and economic impacts. Therefore, in Taiwan, the containment strategies consisted of the more extended case-based interventions (e.g., case detection with enhanced surveillance and contact tracing with active monitoring and quarantine of close contacts) and more targeted population-based interventions (e.g., face mask use in recommended settings and risk-oriented border control with corresponding quarantine requirement). The success of the blended approach emphasizes not only the importance of evidence-supported policymaking but also the coordinated efforts between the government and the people.