Taiwan’s highly effective plan for handling the coronavirus epidemic involved 124 distinct action items, a few of them more strict than Americans might be willing to tolerate, including a program that uses the cell phones of Taiwanese citizens to monitor their locations and ensure they do not violate quarantine orders.
The UK Independent quoted officials who described the program as an “electronic fence” that ensures isolated individuals stay put. To answer the obvious question, yes, they did make provisions to handle people who attempt to leave their houses without carrying their phones and, presumably, a similar approach is taken with the rare Taiwanese citizen who does not have a mobile phone:
“The goal is to stop people from running around and spreading the infection,” said Jyan Hong-wei, head of Taiwan’s Department of Cyber Security, who leads efforts to work with telecom carriers to combat the virus.
The system monitors phone signals to alert police and local officials if those in home quarantine move away from their address or turn off their phones. Mr Hong-wei said authorities will contact or visit those who trigger an alert within 15 minutes.
Officials also call twice a day to ensure people don’t avoid tracking by leaving their phones at home.
As the Independent observed, similar but somewhat less intrusive tracking systems are being used by Israel, South Korea, Thailand, and Vietnam. Singapore sends text messages to quarantined individuals and gives them a certain amount of time to click a link to a website to prove they are home. Hong Kong issues location-tracking wristbands to quarantined patients.
Taiwan’s “electronic fence” looks like the most thorough electronic tracking system yet. It might be a little too thorough even for the generally cooperative Taiwanese public, some of whom were quoted describing it as “creepy” and oppressive by the Independent.
“They said the police will come to me if I missed another phone call. I’m treated like a prisoner,” one Taiwanese woman said.
Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen on Thursday thanked the public for their compliance with tough coronavirus protocols and pledged to avoid bypassing regulations with emergency presidential decrees unless absolutely necessary.
Tsai said she understood how difficult and inconvenient some of the coronavirus restrictions are, but assured the public they are necessary. She pledged financial assistance as necessary but said the Taiwanese economy is holding up better than many other countries affected by the epidemic.
She had strong words for Communist China, blasting Beijing for keeping Taiwan out of the World Health Organization (WHO) and offering Taiwan’s help to all other nations affected by the epidemic, even in the absence of WHO membership.
Taiwan logged 27 new coronavirus cases on Friday, bringing its remarkably low total up to 135 in what appears to be a “second wave” of infections hitting several Asian nations.
Of the new cases, 24 were said to have contracted the disease abroad, returning to Taiwan between March 6 and March 18. One of the patients was described as an “American man his 40s,” while the others were Taiwanese nationals.
“The countries to which they had traveled before their return to Taiwan include the United States, Canada, France, Luxembourg, Belgium, Egypt, the United Kingdom, Mexico, Germany, Poland, Spain, Portugal, Japan, Singapore, Austria, the Netherlands, the Philippines and Turkey,” Focus Taiwan reported.
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.