At the end of last year, the Taiwanese government sounded alarm bells about a virus that could potentially be transmitted from one person to another. During that time, reports of coronavirus infections were only beginning to pop up in Wuhan. The World Health Organization (WHO) chose to neglect the warning since it had denied Taiwan membership in its organization. Three months into the current year, many countries are on lockdown and millions of people are living in fear due to the spread of the CCP coronavirus.
WHO and Taiwan
“While the [WHO] provides a platform for all countries to share information on the epidemic and their response, none of the information shared by our country’s [Centers for Disease Control] is being put up there… The WHO could not obtain first-hand information to study and judge whether there was human-to-human transmission of Covid-19… This led it to announce human-to-human transmission with a delay, and an opportunity to raise the alert level both in China and the wider world was lost,” Taiwan’s vice president Chen Chien-jen said, as reported by National Review.
Taiwanese doctors first learned about human-to-human transmission of COVID-19 from their mainland peers, who revealed that some of their medical staff were falling ill due to the virus. Taiwan passed on the information to the WHO on December 31. However, the organization did not contact any of the Taiwanese authorities to discuss the issue. It was only on January 20th when Chinese authorities also confirmed human transmission of the coronavirus that the knowledge became confirmed to the outside world. The WHO basically sat on a warning about the coronavirus for almost three weeks, doing nothing just so that it could remain in the good graces of the Chinese government.
Taiwan passed on the information to the WHO on December 31, but the organization did not contact any of the Taiwanese authorities to discuss the issue. (Image: via Pixabay)
The impact of hiding such crucial information is available for the world to see. While Taiwan took immediate steps like visitor testing, travel bans, boosting face mask production, etc., beginning in early January, the rest of the world only started taking such drastic measures by late January.
As a consequence, Taiwan has one of the lowest coronavirus infection and mortality rates in the world, which took many experts by surprise since they expected the island nation to be severely affected by COVID-19 due to its proximity to China. Imagine if the WHO had acted on Taiwan’s information and the entire world had taken action in early January.
Thousands of people could have been saved. The blame for making the global impact of the CCP virus outbreak so bad rests with the WHO just as it does with China.
Helping the international community
Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen has announced that her country will donate 10 million face masks to nations that have been the hardest hit due to the coronavirus pandemic. “Taiwan will send 7 million masks to 11 European countries including Italy, Spain, and Germany which have recorded the highest case numbers… The United States will receive 2 million masks and a further 1 million masks will be sent to Taiwan’s 15 diplomatic allies… Those 15 allies officially recognize the island as an independent nation,” according to DPA International.
Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen has announced that her country will donate 10 million face masks to nations that have been the hardest hit due to the coronavirus pandemic. (Image: via Flickr)
During the initial period of the outbreak, the Taiwanese government implemented a rationing system for face masks to ensure that they are available for everyone to purchase. The administration set up 60 face mask manufacturing lines by early March, taking production from 4 million to 6 million and eventually 10 million per day. Even prison inmates have been made part of the mask production system.
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