The John Hopkins University modeled Taiwan (officially the Republic of China) to have one of the highest outbreaks of Covid-19.[1] Taiwan is approximately 627 miles from Wuhan and has strong economic ties to China that lead to 54.9 percent of Taiwanese nationals working overseas in 2019.[2] With its population of 23.591.920[3] (approx. the population of Australia) compared to its size of 36.197 square kilometers[4] (approx. the size of Baden-Württemberg), it has a high population density, therefore presumably an increased risk of human-to-human transmission. However, on July 11, 2020, there are 451 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and seven deaths[5] . Consequently, Taiwan has a surprisingly low infection rate compared to other countries like Spain. For its outstanding handling of the crisis, Taiwan has been praised internationally.[6]
This wiki is trying to give an overall evaluation of the crisis management of Taiwan's governmental administration and tries to explain why its numbers of infection with the new virus are so low. It is structured along with the five critical tasks of strategic crisis leadership defined by Boin et al. (2017): Sense-making, Decision-making and Coordinating, Meaning-making, Accounting, and Learning.[7]

There are several political factors, which played a role during the crisis management of Taiwan. Therefore, a quick overview of the political development of Taiwan:

After massive Chinese migration to Taiwan in the 17th century, the Qing government made Taiwan a province of China in 1885. In 1895, Taiwan was ceded to Japan, slowly modernizing during its colonial period. After world war II, Taiwan was ruled again by the Chinese government under Chiang Kai-shek`s Kuomintang (KMT). KMT was eventually defeated after the Chinese civil war and retreated to Taiwan in 1949, where the island was placed under martial law.[8]

In the following years, Taiwan slowly developed into a thriving democracy and economic miracle.[9] The 1992 agreement between the KMT and Beijing on just “one China” or the “one country-two system policy” has been rejected by the current President of Taiwan Tsai Ing-wen (Democratic Progressive Party).[10] The legal status of Taiwan is unclear and created current political tensions: China sees Taiwan as a breakaway province, Taiwan sees itself a sovereign state.[11] A recent study from the Taiwanese Public Opinion Foundation has shown, that about 83.2 percent of the respondents consider themselves as Taiwanese as opposed to 5.3 percent that identify as Chinese (6.7 percent responded to both and 4.8 percent were without an opinion or answer):[12]

Internationally, the majority of actors, including the World Health Organization (WHO), see Taiwan as part of China, while the United States (U.S.) is more of an ally to Taiwan.[13] This created a precarious triangle that put Taiwan between the competitive relation of the U.S. and China. Because the WHO lists Taiwan as a part of China, some countries stopped flights to Taiwan in January, after a WHO warning, although Taiwan counted only 10 cases of Covid-19 at that time.[14] Its non-membership status in the WHO also constrains Taiwan’s access to information shared within emergency meetings or relevant global expert briefings.[15] A Taiwanese spokesperson explained to TIME magazine that because of that, Taiwan “kept thinking, well, we must have missed important information. That actually gave us that urgency and anxiety that we should be protecting ourselves much better by searching all the necessary social media … and not just rely on WHO’s goodwill or other countries’ goodwill to share information with us.”[16]

Additionally, Taiwan's Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) claimed, that the WHO has not reacted appropriately after Taiwan informed them already on December 31, 2019, about the possibility of human-to-human transmission of COVID-19, which “ (…) led to the delayed global response to the COVID19 pandemic."[17]
According to a senior advisor of a nonprofit group in Paris, “it would have made a hell of a difference (…). In many countries there was complacency about the contagiousness of the virus,” emphasizing France, where medical authorities persisted on a non-proven risk of human-to-human transmission.[18]

On December 18, 2019, days before realizing there will be a new outbreak, an award ceremony for airlines with outstanding performance in disease prevention and aviation safety was hosted.[19] Taiwan was not unprepared for a new pandemic like COVID-19:

In November 2002, the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) epidemic started in Foshan, China, from a novel virus related to the group of coronaviruses.[20] It quickly spread over the country leading to 346 cases of SARS CoV(+)[21] and 181 deaths in Taiwan.[22] One of the problems mentioned is that the government failed to coordinate the response.[23] In an interview during the COVID-19 pandemic, Sue Sung-How, a doctor from Taipei, explained that “Taiwan has been able to draw from its experience of the SARS epidemic of 2002, when the mortality rate was much higher.”[24] As a response to the SARS outbreak - with the Taiwan Center of Disease Control (CDC) as the base - the National Health Command Center (NHCC) was established in 2004 as a unified central command system in cases of public health emergencies, which includes the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC), the Biological Pathogen Disaster Command Center, the Counter-Bioterrorism Command Center, and the Central Medical Emergency Operations Center.[25]

Not only Taiwan's organizational response system but also its medical capacity and research are of high quality.[26] The medical care capacity, including critical resources like available isolation beds and ventilators, are monitored every day and allocated accordingly.[27] In 2003, Taiwan struggled with their capacity in medical employees and the virus being transmitted in hospitals.[28] In 2020, Taiwan made sure to have sufficient medical care workforce by extending license deadlines of medical staff and mobilizing nurses to provide disease prevention support.[29]
Taiwan's National Health Insurance covers virtually almost the whole population,[30] in comparison to other countries like Iran, where some parts of the population can't afford hospital treatment. In Taiwan, people that suspect to be possibly infected, pay less than NT 600 (USD 20) to get relevant medical examination at their nearest hospital.[31]

Taiwans health system is local, interconnected, and widens into rural areas. The NHI system enables data of health records to be centralized, merged with other governmental databases, and analysed on population-level longitudinal data.[32]
Unfortunately, the Global Health Security Index does not list Taiwan with the other 159 countries assessed in their health security capabilities, which makes it difficult to draw a comparison to other countries.[33]

According to Boin et al. (2017), Sense-making signifies the collection and processing of information, which is crucial for crisis managers to understand and react in accordance with the situation. He finds that early detection can save lives and that signals come from different sources: “some loud, some soft, (…) some widely off mark.[34]
In the case of Taiwan's sense-making, its government reacted quickly to a very accurate and soft source:

From experience with the SARS virus, the public and the government in Taiwan were on high alert of similar epidemics early on.[35]
December 31, 2019, between 2 a.m. and at 3 a.m., a post appeared on Taiwan’s largest bulletin board systems (PTT). The post included a warning of a SARS-like disease from a Chinese whistleblowing doctor. The CDC was alarmed immediately, informed the WHO, and started to inspect all passengers arriving from Wuhan the same day.[36]
On January, 13-15 two Taiwanese clinicians traveled to Wuhan to inspect the new disease, of which Chinese officials have claimed not to have infected new cases. Eventually, they were informed about two family clusters of Covid-19 that suggested human – to – human transmission and shared information from the mission with other countries.[37]

As of July 11, 2020, there are 78,496 tested, 77,546 excluded, 451 confirmed cases, seven deaths, and 438 recovered cases in Taiwan.[38] On the 17, of June, there have been no new reported cases of Covid-19 in Taiwan,[39] but later the month, there were reports on some cases coming from Taiwan.[40]
In comparison, South Korea, a country also not far away from China using similar tracking technologies, confirmed more than 12.000 cases in June 2020.

On January, 21, Taiwan confirms its first Covid-19 case, from a passenger that arrived from Wuhan.[41]
After a few locally-acquired and imported cases, the numbers then slowly went up in March, mostly due to imported cases, but declined quickly.[42] Most of the deaths related to Covid-19 were confirmed between the end of March and early April, with the last confirmed death May 11.[43]

In April, a cluster outbreak occurred on a fast combat support ship with 36 sailors infected.[44] It has docked on a southern port of Taiwan in early April and thereby eventually infected people on the mainland.[45]
“In contrast to outbreaks in the U.S. and the French navies, the scale of the infections in the Goodwill Fleet was more limited due to the compulsory wearing of masks, regular taking of temperatures, and meals taken in shifts, the CECC said.” [46] – France
Overall, this case demonstrates the proactive testing logic of Taiwan:
The CECC reported in April to have identified 1,865 individuals in contact with the sailor, of which 534 contacts were undergoing home isolation. Concerning the testing, 173 of the contacts have been tested for COVID-19. Of the identified contacts, 1,331 were conducting “self-health management.”[47]
A proactive logic is not only used to identify potential contacts but also to identify patients showing severe respiratory symptoms or any related to the Covid-19 virus.[48]
Starting in February, the CDC started to use a retrospective COVID-19 screening scheme, which identified case 19 of in Taiwan, one of the persons that tested negative for influenza in the previous two weeks but were surveilled for possible Covid-19 symptoms. All contacts and family members were quarantined or put on self-monitoring. Authorities later identified the person who infected case 19, by using “collaborative triangulation of multiple departments’ databases and disease investigation.”[49]
Furthermore, Taiwan does not pursue mass testing, as it is argued not to be cost-effective nor supported by science:[50]

Information on case statistics around COVID-19 is updated daily and made accessible online.[51]
One of the principles of the Taiwan Center for Disease Control (CDC) is information-based strategies implemented in a complete information network. This network includes “a reporting system for notification of disease outbreaks, a reporting system for syndromes, a geographic information system for communicable diseases, an online disease surveillance system, and an information system on immunization” to which disease control organizations have access.[52]
Furthermore, Taiwan has been praised for its transparent managing of the crisis and sharing information with other countries, often set in relation to the reporting logic of China.[53]
Nevertheless, also on a national scale, the government provides open and transparent information like access to the NHI database for public and private sectors.[54]

Interestingly, official websites do not elaborate on Taiwan’s reporting logic nor list false-negative cases/positive cases (at least in English). There seem not to be any detected false negative/positive results. However, this might also be the case as the case number in Taiwan is low and they try to prevent false results with their testing logic.
 
At least, false negatives are one of the reasons that the CECC actively decided against following South Korea in implementing general screening, as Taiwan did not have mass infections. According to the CECC, general screening undesirably leads to more false negatives, which become a gap in the efforts to contain the virus. The cruise ship Diamond princess is an examplary case of that. Japan preventively tested all passengers on board after some were tested positive on Covid-19. However, because some of the passengers had low virus loads in their bodies during the examination, they falsely tested negative. It doesn’t just result in false numbers, but passengers strolling around, thinking they do not infect others. Therefore, people that are tested negative for pneumonia in Taiwan conduct self-health monitoring and are not allowed to go out until they receive their test results. Those whos tests are negative are supposed to continue self-monitoring; those with positive tests are isolated for treatment.[55]
 
One of the first reported cases of Taiwan was a businessman arriving from Wuhan in Taiwan on January, 21. He did not adhere to the anti-epidemic regulations and instead went partying. After he was investigated to have fever and had stayed in a hospital in Wuhan, he was hospitalized with a positive test result and put into a negative pressure isolation ward. He was isolated for 81 days with no symptoms but never produced three negative test results in a row to release him until April 12. Apparently, nobody questioned the veracity or accuracy of the PCR-based reagent tests.[56]
In the end, this case isn’t stated to be a false positive case. Nevertheless, this case strongly suggests that there is uncertainty about test results.
For example, in a study of 2014, researchers in Taiwan found that PCR tests to detect the norovirus (NV) produced false-positive results in at least 13.2 percent of the 250 clinical stool samples.[57] Eventually, Taiwanese media did criticize authorities for testing asymptomatic cases arriving at the airports, as this may lead to false-positive results.[58]

According to Boin et al. (2017), deciding on which measures to take according to the current conditions, as well as coordinating horizontally and vertical throughout the response network, challenges the leaders during a pandemic.[59] Taiwan has proactively implemented its measures and created a central command system coordinating all actors involved:

In Taiwan, there are local subnational governments, but with limited competences. There are six special municipalities, three autonomous municipalities, and 13 counties. Special municipalities like the capital city Taipei are exceptionally crucial for regional development and thereby are granted more funding and resources, yet fall under the direct jurisdiction of the central government.[60]
 
According to Article 5 of the Communicable Disease Control Act, the competence of local authorities is first and foremost to implement the plans and measures of the central government and report to it for reference. However, they are also responsible for conducting quarantine locally.[61] Additionally, a “Local government care and support service project for home quarantine and isolation” was established March 1, 2020, that covered all districts nationwide and puts governments like counties and city governments in charge of all planning concerning psychological, medical, and life support.[62] Because local governments are also cooperating with the CECC, multilevel coordination is enhanced.[63]
The lowest elected officials in Taiwan are borough chiefs. They are the ones in close contact with their neighborhood and make sure that people in their jurisdiction stay in quarantine if they are supposed to be.[64]

The CECC has a coordinating role in several aspects. On January 23, 2020, Dr. Shih-Chung Chen, the Minister of Health and Welfare, was appointed the new commander of the CECC to coordinate and mobilize resources from a cross-ministry perspective, and between private stakeholders.[65]
According to Article 4 of the Enforcement Regulations Governing the Central Epidemics Command Center:
“The commanding officer of the Center has the unified authority to command, supervise and coordinate government organizations at various levels, public enterprises, reserved servicemen's organizations, non-governmental organizations to implement disease control matters; when necessary, support of the army may be coordinated.”[66]
 
In the Covid-19 pandemic, the army was activated to produce masks and assist in the manufacturing of medical equipment.[67]

Similar to Sweden, there has been no hard lockdown in Taiwan.[68] Still, the pandemic was taken very seriously:
Building complexes have sanitizers with security guards checking the temperatures, students with fewer have to stay at home, and the hospital has to be informed, baseball games take place without fans, “epidemic-prevention taxis” transport people from the airport to their homes, hospitals or quarantine hotels, and gatherings without important reasons are limited to 100 people indoors.[69]
The government implemented a series of measurements that would slow down the spread and allow the government to have more time for testing and mask production.[70] The Ministry of Health and Welfare (MOHW) established a dedicated website allocating all epidemic prevention measures, including an interactive timeline on these strategies: Timeline from MOHW
As Taiwan's significant policies the MOHW lists: early border control as soon as December 31, stockpiling of masks and supplies, community transmission prevention like quarantine or self-isolation, Inspection, and testing by for example setting up a national testing network, international cooperation of sharing information or supplies as well as information and data protection of the population.[71]

Furthermore, Jason Wang, MD, Ph.D., has identified at least 124 action items implemented in the crucial first 5 weeks of Taiwan's crisis management:[72]

The following timeline illustrates the policies adopted in relation to the developments of Covid-19 in the first 50 days:[73]

Most significantly, strict quarantining and case identification was realized by the use of technology.[74]
Within one day, the database from the National Immigration Agency of the past 14-day travel history of citizens was integrated into the NHI identification cards. The data was not only extended to patients from China, Hong Kong, and Macau but was also available to all hospitals, clinics, and pharmacies in Taiwan. Additionally, travelers that arrived or departed from Taiwan were able to scan a Q.R. code, enter their information in an online forum and could get health declaration passes via SMS.[75]

On January 31, the cruise ship Diamond Princess docked on a northern harbor near Taipei,[76] with later 712 persons tested positive for COVID-19.[77]
Officials used contact-tracing methods to ensure none of the infected spread the virus in the capital. Those methods included extracting all mobile-numbers that were geo-located at the same time and location as the passengers and sending warning signals to more than 600.000 numbers.[78]
As another example, if a hospital reports a patient with Covid-19 symptoms, the CECC then uses the patients anonymized digital “footprint” in public spaces to warn potential contacts.
A typical message could look like this: “Epidemic Alert. You have been in the proximity of an infected person. Please maintain self-health management, keep to social distancing rules, wear a mask in public and wash hands regularly. If you have any physical complaints, please contact your local healthcare provider.” [79]
The government has been criticized for using some methods that are unobliging or an infringement of privacy as for example, they seem to know as well which of the 600.000 went to see a doctor afterward.[80]
Officials use similar methods to keep track of people in strict quarantine: they identify the GPS-signals from the travelers' smartphones at the airport and track them for 14-days. If they leave their accommodations or do not answer their phones twice a day, when authorities call, local police will track them down and is authorized to give fees between 3000 and 30.000 euros in case of misconduct.[81]

New Technologies have also come in hand in the distribution of resources, specifically: Mask supply.

In order to prevent long ques in front of pharmacies, the government set up a platform to let vendors inform users where stocks are filled. Taiwan’s Hacking community has then participated and created real-time “mask maps” apps with several features, showing a creative form of public participation during the pandemic. As Audrey Tang, Taiwan's Digital Minister puts it: "Because we trust the people a lot, sometimes the people trust back."[82]

Based on the digits of their NHI cards or resident certificate, citizens are then identified and divided into groups to regulate the mask output. Mask supply is not only guaranteed for citizens, but Taiwan earned much gratitude internationally for providing other countries with masks.[83]
It has to be noted, that the wearing of masks is a cultural norm in Taiwan. It is said that the wearing of maks "is considered a moral virtue to protect others from one’s own infection, so as to break the chain, for the benefit of all."[84]

According to Boin et al. (2017), in order for the public to understand and respect the measures taken by the government, it has to formulate and deliver their narrative of what is happening.[85] Taiwan has profited from its experience with SARS and informed its population regularly:

While other countries, like Brazil have a hard time to convince their leaders to follow scientific advice, Taiwan’s former vice president unified the role of a leader and scientist. Chen Chien-Jen is a distinguished professor in molecular and genomic epidemiology.[86] During the 2003 SARS outbreak, he held a famous and popular role as a scientist and in the role of a health Minister tackling the epidemic.[87] According to an associate professor of political science at the National University of Singapore, Chong Ja Ian, there is a strong trust in science and respect for medical professionals in Taiwan’s society, which was fundamental for his success.[88] While in 2020, the CECC held daily press briefings, he was regularly broadcasting from his office and informed the public on guidelines such as why to wash their hands.[89] Since 2003, there is a toll-free number to enable direct communication between the public and authorities for disease reporting, consultation, policy promotions, and education, set up by the CDC.[90]

With its campaign, “Taiwan can help, Health for all,” Taiwan has donated millions of medical masks to other countries.[91] Furthermore, the Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) developed its first medical-grade ventilator prototype in just 17 days, highlighting the “Taiwan Helps sprit.”[92] The Hashtag “#TaiwanCanHelp” on Twitter has become viral for expressing the capacity of Taiwan to help other countries, as demonstrated on the website TaiwanCanHelp.  The “Taiwan Model” as a thriving democracy combating the COVID-19 virus, strongly contradicts the Chinese narrative of its “successful” communist “Chinese Model.”[93] As later in the wiki discussed, most of the Taiwanese see China responsible for the pandemic.
Overall, Taiwan is blaming "The Others" as cases were detected on travelers from abroad.[94]
The following video, promoted on several Taiwan embassy websites may help one to understand the narrative of Taiwan in its role of combating the virus:

 

As stated by Scharpf (1998): “Democracy is a concept with a variety of meanings, but when we speak of democratic legitimacy, the reference must be to arguments that can be used to justify the exercise of governing authority“[95]

According to the last poll of yougov.de in June. 30, Taiwanese seem to think their government is handling the crisis “very” or “somewhat well” to 84%, which is a very high result in relation to other countries like France or Spain[96]

The Taiwanese Public Opinion Foundation (TPOF) released a few surveys during the pandemic, which resulted in the following outcomes:
The approval rate of President Tsai Ing-wen is at 71 percent, with 69 percent of people having faith in the current Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) government. Additionally, the satisfaction with the government’s financial relief plan during the pandemic is rated at 55 percent, and a total of 38 percent of respondents dissatisfied. The TPOF examined as well the relationship with China. Accordingly, 76 percent see China as responsible for the virus expanding into a global pandemic, with only 17 percent disagreeing. The TPOF claims that the results indicate a broad consensus on the coronavirus in Taiwan’s society. The results have also shown that most of the respondents are proud to be Taiwanese and not Chinese and that the idea of “one country, two areas” and “future unification” was rejected with a majority of 66 percent.[97]

Not only ongoing surveys, but the presidential election in January can be interpreted as an indicator of government support:
On January, 11 Tsai Ing-wen of the DPP has been elected to a second four-year term as President. She received 57.13 percent of the total valid ballots cast. In addition, her 8.17 million votes are stated to be the highest ever recorded for a candidate in the presidential elections in Taiwan.[98]

Boin et al. (2017) identifies three critical components of a crisis: Threat, Urgency, and Uncertainty.[99] In this case, the threat is observable by the geographical proximity and economic interconnection with China but also anticipated by Taiwan because of its experience with the SARS virus. The urgency, as expressed by the governmental spokesman, has been addressed very quickly in Taiwan’s management. The government acknowledged uncertainty by taking proactive measures and sending a research team to Wuhan early in the year. Therefore, it can be argued that the Taiwanese government has very well addressed the components of the COVID-19 crisis. Nevertheless, as they have managed it so very well, without a hard lockdown and few deaths, the scale of the crisis in Taiwan is not as dramatic as in other countries with more infections like Brazil, India, Chile or Spain

As outlined in Lodge and Wegrich (2014), the concept of administratice capacity in the Modern State can be distinguished into several subtypes, among them Coordination capacity.[100] The establishment of the CECC as a centralized command system allowed Taiwan to increase its capacity in coordinating different levels of administration and actors involved.
This may have also affected the approval rates of the Taiwanese government, as according to Christensen et al. (2019, in Lægreid, P. and Rykkja, L.H., 2019), one of the biggest preconditions for high governance legitimacy is high governance capacity.[101]

Boin et al. (2017) addresses centralization as a factor in crisis response, which might slow down the response of lower-level administration and Improvisation.[102] Indeed, the CECC is a centralized response system, but it cooperates with local governments and enhances multilevel coordination. Concerning Improvisation, the CDC adresses this problem by acknowledging the importance of flexibility in disease control, listing it as one of its core principles: "Disease control measures will stay flexible to cope with disease outbreaks at any time; to develop capability in crisis management; to actively collect domestic and international disease information ; to stay alert at all time; and to promptly handle disease outbreaks."[103]

As observed by Baldwin (2005, p.25) "One of the main reasons states differ from one another in their approaches is that they interact variously with civil society."[104] This can be perfectly illustrated by the comparison of Taiwan and the Netherlands in their tracking response to Covid-19:

While Taiwanese were found to be more collectivist than individualistic,[105] the Netherlands are reported to be a more Individualist society.[106]
This could be of significance when citizens decide on whether to accept measurements that demand individual sacrifices like privacy but are meant for the greater good.

The Dutch saw the use of technology in terms of privacy and security very critical, especially the use of a Covid-19 tracking app. The "liberal" Netherlands ended up rejecting the idea of state monitoring while the Taiwanese seem to comply with its governmental surveillance. In the beginning, the Dutch administration counted on its citizen's self-responsibility but later had to reject the idea as apparently, it did not stop the spread of the virus. While the Netherlands then closed its public spaces, Taiwan kept theirs open and implemented more liberal policies concerning freedom of movement.[107]

Here it has to be noted that government surveillance in Taiwan was not implemented because the public saw itself as irresponsible in its actions. Instead, the public actively participated:
The Ministry of Health and Welfare explains that after the SARS epidemic, the public is already sensitized on how to behave during a pandemic.[108] Public participation extends to the contribution of whistleblowers reporting quarantine violations.[109] and Hackers participating in the coding of "masks maps". The latter case was only possible because of Taiwan's Trust in its citizens.

Boin et al. (2017) claims that government, in particular democracies, have to return to some kind of normality, and it has to re-establish its system of governance.[110] As Taiwan’s leadership acts within a democratic setting, the aspect of accounting is crucial. The CECC acts as the powerholder in decision-making and coordination during the pandemic. Nevertheless, it is also an established system that is not justified to act within a “normal” governmental setting. The process of accounting has already started as entry measures, and other restrictions were slowly loosened[111] and as the Ministry of Health already set up a website on the measures taken and their explanation for implementing them.[112]

Finally, Learning is the last of the five strategic leadership tasks of Boin et al. (2017) that this wiki was structured along. Learning is a process that Taiwan has already profited from after the SARS epidemic. What Taiwan learned from the COVID-19 pandemic is yet to be determined. According to Boin et al. (2017), crisis “expose systems that are stuck, rusty, rigid, outdated, or otherwise inadequate” and thereby call to seize the opportunity for change.[113] On the contrary, Covid-19 in Taiwan exposed a system somewhat capable of governing the island itself during a crisis. The transparent and effective response of Taiwan to the COVID-19 crisis gained international praise and attention.[114] It seems that not only Taiwan learns from this crisis, as various foreign news articles about Taiwan’s Covid-19 response during this research are headlined by phrasings like: “How to control the spread of the coronavirus: Lessons from Taiwan.”[115] Having the political ties and history of Taiwan in mind, those “lessons” are very much analogies for the present leaders of Taiwan. The case of Taiwan shows the very political significance of crisis management. Its international mark during the Covid-19 crisis will much likely influence its political future—Taiwan’s support on joining the WHO has already increased in response to its crisis management.[116]

There are several factors crucial to Taiwan’s success in managing the COVID-19 crisis.
Undeniably, its quick reaction allowed it to flatten the curve in an early stage of the pandemic. Comparing this wiki to the others, Taiwan was the very first to implement measures. It is also one of the very few countries without a hard lockdown. It seems to have focused on tracking the individual Covid-19 cases rather than preventing outbreaks by strict measurements. There are cultural and organizational factors that contributed immensely to the effective implementation of measurements. Government authorities did not hold back to make use of technology for contact-tracing, and thereby being able to identify Covid-19 cases. Transparent communication and Trust seem to be central values embraced during the pandemic. Last but not least, Taiwan launched an international campaign about its capacity to help others and may ask the world in return, to help with its political independence in the future.

Evaluating Taiwan’s crisis management in the light of crisis literature leads one to the conclusion that Taiwan addressed most aspects of crisis management very well, in all likelihood, because of its lessons learned after the SARS epidemic. For now, there are very few cases in Taiwan, but a second wave of Covid-19 may be rechallenging the country in the future. Liou Her-ran, deputy secretary-general of the New Taipei City government explains:
“Even though the epidemic situation has improved, the epidemic has not ended (…) we cannot slack off, lest the epidemic spreads again.”[117]

Overall, most of the information collected for this wiki was easy to access, even though pieces of information and graphs were not translatable into English. Unfortunately, this was not the case for a stay at-home-song of Taiwan.^*
Therefore, this wiki ends with a randomly, currently trending parody song of Taiwan, that imitates a Chinese song, thereby illustrating the political conflict between China and Taiwan in a very creative and funny way:
1. China song
2. Taiwan song

(^*I noticed that Youtube videos/songs I have previously uploaded in this wiki were taken down or switched off to private accounts. That may also be the case with this one.)