‘We are now moving from zero-COVID’: Taiwan pivots as Beijing doubles down

Until recently, China and Taiwan were among the last places on earth to pursue a “zero-COVID” policy of eliminating infections. For two years, they mostly succeeded in keeping the coronavirus out with tough border controls and rigorous contact tracing.
Then came the highly transmissible omicron variant.
Faced with surging coronavirus cases, the two governments are now taking vastly different approaches. In China, authorities are doubling down. They have imposed stringent lockdowns, mass testing and centralized quarantines for confirmed cases and close contacts. The glittering financial capital of Shanghai has been in a strict and punishing lockdown for more than a month to contain a large outbreak.
In Taiwan, contrast, the government is shifting from a strategy of elimination to one of mitigation. Despite soaring case counts, Taiwan is now allowing people with mild and asymptomatic infections to isolate at home instead of in hospitals. The government slashed the number of days in quarantine required of incoming travelers and people deemed close contacts.
Officials are calling it a “new Taiwan model.”
“We are now moving from ‘zero-COVID’ to the path of coexing with the virus,” Chen Shih-chung, Taiwan’s health miner, said at a news briefing Tuesday, adding that he expected COVID-19 to become more “flu-like” in nature.
The government’s shift in approach reflects an acceptance of growing evidence that omicron, while highly transmissible, is less deadly. It is also a recognition that pandemic measures such as quarantine requirements for travelers were stifling economic activity and eroding the island’s international competitiveness.
“Even though their response has been a bit slow, they have responded to these voices and to scientific evidence,” said Chunhuei Chi, director of the Center for Global Health at Oregon State University and a former policy adviser to Taiwan’s National Health Insurance Adminration.
Under the new model, Taiwanese health officials say, they are shifting their focus from looking at total infections to “reducing disasters.” That means redirecting resources to focus on protecting the most vulnerable populations, such as older adults and those with underlying conditions. Authorities are also putting more emphasis on vaccinations instead of quarantines and contact tracing.
Although cases have surged, officials have emphasized that more than 99.7% of the new infections so far have been mild or asymptomatic. On Monday, Taiwan’s health authorities reported 40,263 locally transmitted cases and 12 deaths, bringing the death toll since the start of the outbreak in April to 78. Authorities have warned that daily infections could surpass 100,000 this week.
The government’s shift is partly out of necessity. Its COVID-19 strategy allowed Taiwan for much of the past more than two years to be a rare haven, where international concerts and conferences could be held without fear of the virus. Now, as the rest of the world has dropped border controls and restarted business, that dinction has largely evaporated, and Taiwan risks losing out on tourism and investment continuing to stay closed.
Political considerations are also at play. Taiwan has used its success with COVID-19 to burnish its image as a beacon of democracy, in contrast to the authoritarian Commun Party of China, which claims the island as its territory.
Unlike China, Taiwan’s leaders say, Taiwan can balance the needs of public health with the rights of the individual and the healthy functioning of society. At the other extreme is the crisis in Shanghai, where officials imposed a poorly planned lockdown that sometimes arbitrarily confined residents to mass isolation facilities, separated children from their parents and led to food shortages.