COVID-19 in Taiwan and United States

COVID-19 is an infectious disease that originated in Wuhan, China that causes respiratory illness. About 1.5 million people are infected and 88 thousand people have died because of it. This disease has impacted the whole world, bringing unexpected and long-lasting changes to society and the economy. It started to spread in Asia around January and got to the United States around the end of February. The United States is now the country with the most infected cases and death, with New York being the most infected state with about 150 thousand cases and 6000 deaths. Taiwan, on the other hand, has only 379 infected cases and 5 deaths. This paper focuses on the situations of Taiwan and the United States to better understand how different countries are dealing with COVID-19, which led to where they are at today.

In terms of health care, Taiwan and the United States have very different systems that contributed to the situations that they are facing today. The nature of health care is very distinct between the two countries. While the Taiwanese health care is provided at a community level, where everyone has the same right to basic health insurance through paying taxes; American health care is provided at a more organizational level where people purchase different insurance plans through insurance companies. People in Taiwan have national medical care that covers most medical expenses whereas people in States have insurance companies that pay for most of their medical bills. The indirect care the American government provides has caused people to receive unequal medical care which is rooted in the problems of inequality in the society. People who cannot afford proper health care would not receive important medical assistants when in need, and a lot of low SES population choose to spend their money on food, shelter, or other necessities instead of health insurance. This led to great differences in the initial testing periods of COVID-19. Because a lot of people in the United States could not afford to be tested, a lot of people who were possibly infected did not receive medical care immediately and caused the disease to spread even more seriously on a community level. On the other hand, the Taiwanese government has paid for people’s testing since the beginning, which allowed people with suspected symptoms to receive medical help earlier and reduced the chance of community spread. On top of having universal healthcare, the experience of going through SARS in 2003 made Taiwan more prepared at handling the outbreak. Due to SARS, the Taiwanese government implemented infrared thermometers at the international airports, which allowed them to better screen people that are entering the country. Also because of SARS, the Taiwanese CDC performs regular rehearsals for hospitals to practice before times of crisis. Contrarily, the Trump government ignores the pandemic response plan that was devised and updated until years ago that could have better responded to the pandemic.

Interestingly, people’s attitudes toward the virus were very different in the early stages. A great population of the western world believed that the virus was just like flu and should not be taken too seriously, while the Taiwanese people were panicking even before there were a lot of cases. This could be explained by O’Donnell’s Activity Setting, suggesting that social settings integrate subjective experiences and cultural meaning. The experience of SARS and culture of “going to the doctor even with very mild illness” caused Taiwanese people to react very differently to the Americans, who tend to rest and take over-the-counter medicines when they are sick. Another example to further explain such differences shared by Taiwan and the United States is the importance of wearing masks. The culture of wearing has always been different in Taiwan compared to other countries. In most Western countries, only people with severe diseases will wear masks. However, Taiwanese people see wearing masks as a way of protecting themselves and preventing the spread of sickness. Especially along with the outbreak of SARS in Taiwan, the importance of wearing masks was highlighted even more. This is also why the Taiwanese government banned the export of face masks, ensured they were affordable by capping prices, and regulated the selling of medical masks to maintain fair distribution. Whereas a lot of Americans still question the functionality and importance of masks and free-market belief caused the prices of masks to skyrocket and the supplies to be extremely insufficient. This shows that due to people’s experiences in the past and cultural meaning of specific behavior, different populations and settings reacted to the same behavior distinctly.

To combat the chaos caused by COVID-19 and prevent the spread of the virus, both Taiwan and New York took action on multiple levels. On a macrosystem level, both governments set multiple regulations, such as the gathering and traveling restrictions. New York State declared a state of emergency and Taiwan issued three levels of self-quarantine. On an organizational level, universities and companies were deciding to go remote in both countries. On an individual and small group level, people who had international or domestic travels were instructed to be quarantined for 14 days in both locations. While the basics are the same, staying in an isolated room and preventing contact with anyone, the rules of self-quarantine were somewhat different. The United States advises people to take their temperature every day and keep a record of the measures, however, Taiwan took this step a bit further and put the advancement in technology to good use by having the officials call the quarantine individuals every day along with APP to report temperature and GPS tracking to make sure they are in good health and isolated from the public. This difference is caused by both the differences in the national population and the infected population size as it is impossible to track every single person in the States because of the large number, but this also shows how in depth the government is willing to track people and how important early preventions are. Although the Taiwanese government gives out care packages with food, books, and streaming accounts to people who are quarantined and the American government is not providing any sorts of aids for being in quarantine, multiple restaurants and organizations in the States are providing food in the States to families that relied on school-provided meals for children and the experiencing sudden lack of income for purchase, which greatly helps the most in-need population during this crisis.

Both countries tried very hard to do damage control and their actions can be analyzed through Caplan’s Prevention Framework. Because of the experience with SARS, Taiwan is especially careful and aware of disease outbreaks, which caused them to be particularly alarmed when they found out about the disease in Wuhan. Their initial reaction was secondary prevention where they screened people that entered the country from Wuhan because people traveling from Wuhan were “high risk” groups that could carry the disease, and screening and limiting their entrance could prevent a great amount of spreading. The United States, however, chose not to react until very later on. This slow to react attitude in the States caused community spread in all states and an especially high number of infected cases in New York. To reduce the spread, the New York government declared a stay at home order and it can be considered primary prevention because the goal is to reduce the number of new cases and it is implemented to everyone, not just people at risk, for example, people who interreacted with infected individuals. Sadly, there were people infected in both countries, and both countries tried to provide medical care to these people, which can be seen as tertiary prevention in which the goal is to prevent additional complications and spread.

One big reason why the pandemic is causing so many issues is that the society is closely linked in numerous aspects and every decision creates ripple effects that influence in many other areas. According to Kelly’s Ecological Principles, one needs to look at the independence, cycling of resources, adaptation, and succession to understand the human environment. By looking through the perspectives of ecological principles, it is possible to better analyze how Taiwan and the United States are working against COVID-19. Every society today is made up of closely knitted relationships that allow people to cooperate and exchange services to make life easier. There is a great amount of interdependence within the society that people often forget to treasure. This is why it was prioritized to keep schools open until the very last minutes because removing childcare for parents could cause great troubles to work and thus the life of numerous people. This is also why it is strongly promoted to stay at home and not spread the disease, increasing the humongous pressure on the healthcare system and people. The hashtag “We work for you. Please stay home for us.” highlights this linkage of people’s lives. Next, the cycling of resources also plays a critical part in this fight against COVID-19. As Taiwan is a lot smaller than the United States, it is very much easier to transport and share medical resources and supplies within the country. However, it seems like the lack of medical supplies is not mainly due to the lack of resources nationally but because the American federal government is not allocating the medical resources according to the density of need (USA Today). Yet, cycling of resources is not simply the distribution of physical resources, personal resources, such as experiences and strength, and social resources, such as shared beliefs and sense of community, are also important. A good example of the proper use and collaboration of personal resources is how the Taiwanese government provided machines and local factories provided manpower, locations, and time to assist the production of masks, transforming Taiwan into the second biggest mask production country. A good example of social resources could be how people have the common belief that wearing masks and social distancing could prevent the spread of the virus and remember to perform in such ways in public. Adaptation is also very significant in this period of time as people would need to follow their stay at home orders and get used to a new lifestyle of working at home with all family members. In return, the higher levels of analysis, the governments try to provide the best they can for their people. The last principle is succession, which is the ultimate change after the pandemic. It is difficult to say what would happen, but personally I think countries would re-evaluate their reliance on other countries and their preparedness for resources and plans in case of any future pandemic or global crisis.

The COVID-19 pandemic has messed up everyone's plan in numerous ways, but there are some silver linings. Despite all the problems, some amazing things are still happening making this pandemic a little less terrible. One of the most impressive things is the use of technology during this period. The possibility of having classes online virtually would not have been possible years ago, and the ability for all the universities in the States to go remote indicates a great milestone for our scope of education. Although it messed up with people’s semester and graduations, it has also reduced a great number of problems if schools were canceled instead of shifting. The generalized use of social media and communication applications has also assisted in spreading information and keeping people updated. In Taiwan, an application was even created to allow people to more conveniently buy masks, which advances medical capabilities for the future. The situation is also bring many people together in heartwarming ways. People are cooperating, and being more caring and understanding to others. Because masks are now in great need, multiple factories, companies, even families are working on providing for others. Large amounts of donations were also made nationally and internationally. Also, for Taiwan in specific, the great prevention and control work that Taiwan is performing has led to greater recognition and distinction between Taiwan and China as well as other nations advocating for Taiwan to join the WHO and cooperate with them in the future. Lastly, due to the great reduction of pollution, the environment is recovering greatly. Sea turtles could lay eggs and the Himalayas are finally visible from distance.

The COVID-19 pandemic has created an enormous problem globally and countries are trying their best to deal with the situations. These past few months have been very difficult for a lot of people. People were forced to isolate themselves, numerous plans and events were canceled, some people did not even get a chance to say goodbye to their dear family members. The economy is worsening globally and the wellness of people is dropping. Hopefully, this tragedy would only make the world a better place, improving research, preventions, and technologies, and people would allow the experiences to lead us to a better society in the future.