Taiwan to Break Away from Zero Covid Policy

Taiwan is seeing record Covid numbers as the Omicron variant runs wild. But unlike its neighbor, Taiwan won’t stick to zero Covid policy.

• Taiwan has been one of the success stories of the Covid19 pandemic with minimal number of deaths at a time when the rest of the world was devastated by rising Covid cases.
• It looks like that golden streak may have come to a halt as Taiwan’s case count has crossed 44,000 cases and the peak is expected only towards the end of May or early June.
• Taiwanese Health Minister Chen Shih-Chung had said on 17 April that close to 3.6 million Taiwanese people could end up contracting the virus.
• Unlike China, Taiwan will not be taking a zero-Covid approach. Life is expected to continue as before with even quarantine for international travel cut down to seven days.
• Taiwan’s vaccination rates are around 70% but surprisingly, a large proportion of its elderly population has either not been vaccinated or only has a single dose.
• From reports, it seems that the Taiwanese government wasn’t fully prepared for such a spike in cases. Quarantine regulations are confusing and there’s a severe shortage of rapid testing kits.