Introduction
World Health Organization (WHO) declared COVID‐19 a pandemic on 12 March 2020 (World Health Organization 2020a), and compared to other countries, Taiwan has to date registered a relatively low number of COVID‐19 cases. As of 10 June 2020, Taiwan’s 443 confirmed cases of COVID‐19 included 55 domestic cases (12.4%) and 352 imported cases (79.5%), while 36 (8.1%) were navy members on the fleet, and of these, seven had died (Taiwan Centers for Disease Control 2020, 2020a). This is all the more remarkable given that Taiwan sits only 81 miles off the coast of China and was initially predicted to suffer the second highest number of COVID‐19 cases worldwide due to its proximity to and frequency of flights to and from China (Center for Systems Science & Engineering of Johns Hopkins University 2020).
How has Taiwan controlled the spread of this coronavirus outbreak while other countries have not? The answer to this question has its roots in the hard lessons learned from prior experience dealing with the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) epidemic in 2003. This experience helped Taiwan, both at governmental and societal levels, react relatively quickly to the COVID‐19 outbreak and treat its potential harms more seriously. Border controls and wearing of face masks became routine policies as early as January in Taiwan, while hospitals quickly established readiness plans that included relevant protocols and the stockpiling of supplies, equipment and medications.
This article describes the quick response of the Taiwan government and of Taiwan’s nurses and Taiwan Nurses Association, as a National Nurses Association, to the COVID‐19 outbreak as a reference to other countries in their response to COVID‐19.