This was due to Taiwan’s close connections with mainland China — there are 400,000 Taiwanese people living there and there have been thousands of cross-strait flights every week.

Attention has since shifted to Taiwan’s model for controlling the spread of COVID-19 and how it was able to do so more efficiently than other East Asian countries. Perhaps Taiwan can boost its international reputation after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern stated that they plan to follow Taiwan’s COVID-19 response guidelines.

Taiwan has one of the best national health care systems in the world. It is accessible to 99.9 per cent of citizens and allows them to obtain high-quality medical services for low costs. A visit to the doctor for a cold only costs less than US$10. The comprehensive coverage of Taiwan’s healthcare system has contributed to the country’s fight against COVID-19. The government has also added travel history information to national health ID cards so doctors can track their patients’ travel history.

The Taiwanese government used this digital governance approach to successfully identify the majority of its confirmed cases. Based on the findings, Taiwan banned people from Hubei province from entering Taiwan starting from 26 January. On 5 February, Taiwan closed its borders and prohibited mainland Chinese tourists from entering. Taiwan was one of the earliest countries to implement these policies.

The Taiwanese government applied big data techniques for epidemiological predictions and also cooperated with civil society to create applications, such as the popular face masks application that provides information regarding availability of face masks in the users’ vicinity.

A lack of trust in China is another reason that the Taiwanese government has done better than others at preventing the spread of COVID-19. In 2003, Taiwan had negative experiences with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) during the SARS epidemic. During the outbreak, the CCP blocked Taiwan from participating in the World Health Assembly and refused to allow Taiwan access to timely epidemic information from Chinese medical statistics or the World Health Organization.

This political oppression and informational isolation left the Taiwanese government in the dark and it had a significant impact. Seventy-three people died in Taiwan due to information insufficiency, accounting for nearly 10 per cent of global deaths in the SARS epidemic.

Taiwan’s distrust of China meant that the information provided by the CCP about the current coronavirus outbreak was not taken as fact. So, the Taiwanese government had more autonomy to make decisions and find the most appropriate strategy.

Face masks and strict quarantine policies are two vital elements of Taiwan’s coronavirus response model. The 2003 SARS outbreak led Taiwanese people to believe that wearing a face mask was an easy and practical way to protect themselves in case of a pandemic and in daily life. Meanwhile western cultures tend to associate face masks with being sick, unhealthy or dirty, rather than a tool of self-protection. This cultural difference explains contrasts in the mask wearing habits of Taiwanese and Western people.

Taiwan was the first country to announce a face mask export ban policy on 24 January. But face masks manufactured in Taiwan only cover 10 per cent of national usage. To prevent a shortage, the Taiwanese government collaborated with over 30 Taiwanese private face mask production companies and machine tool companies to create 60 new production lines. Until mid-March, Taiwan could produce 10 million face mask per day, meaning that each of its 23 million residents could get a face mask every two days.

The Taiwanese government also announced three different types of quarantine policies including home-based isolation, home-based surveillance and self-health management. People with health conditions or people returning to Taiwan from abroad must comply with different quarantine policies. And anyone found violating these policies may be fined US$5000–US$10,000. This mandatory quarantine policy has reduced the possibility of patients spreading the virus.

Participation at the local level is key to the success of quarantine policies. Local village chiefs call every day to ensure that those who are in quarantine are really staying at home. The chiefs also deliver food to quarantined people.

Another two critical elements of Taiwan’s model are scientific evidence-based decision-making and winning over public confidence and support. Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen assigned the Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung the role of Chief Commander and asked him to organise a professional committee, which included doctors and experts in epidemiology, to manage disease prevention. The Chief Commander and the committee now hold a media press conference every afternoon to announce pandemic updates.

But most politicians — including Tsai — have taken a backseat and do not have overall responsibility for these processes. The Taiwanese government respects the information provided by medical professionals and their decisions, allowing it to gain public confidence in its COVID-19 response policies.

In an attempt to control the spread of COVID-19 via public transportation, on 1 April the Taiwanese government banned passengers with body temperatures exceeding 37.5 degrees Celsius from taking public transportation. All Taiwanese flight attendants must also wear full protective gear and passengers are prohibited from changing their seats without permission.

From its high-coverage healthcare system to the use of face masks and strict quarantine policies, to respecting advice from medical professionals, there is a lot that other countries can learn from Taiwan’s model for managing COVID-19.

Hsien-Ming Lin is a PhD candidate in Social and Cultural Anthropology at KU Leuven, Belgium, and at the Institute of Political Science, National Sun Yat-sen University, Taiwan.

This article is part of an EAF special feature series on the novel coronavirus crisis and its impact.