Second GPN Global Webinar "COVID-19. SUPERNATIONAL, NATIONAL AND REGIONAL RESPONSES. BUILDING RESILIENCE THROUGH COMPARISON OF EXPERIENCES" - March 5th 2021 Professor Anton Ming-Zhi Gao "Legal measures against covid 19 in Taiwan" GPN: https://www.globalpandemicnetwork.org/ Official GPN webinar web page:https://www.globalpandemicnetwork.org/news_events/webinar-5th-march-2021/

1. Legal
Measures
against
COVID-19 in
Taiwan
antongao@mx.nthu.edu.tw
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2. About me
 Energy law as my main research focus
 Over the past years, he has been very active in international
publications involving investigations on global legal issues, as well
as European, Asian, and Taiwanese energy laws. In recent years,
he has remained one of the most productive scholars in the field of
energy law in Taiwan.
 Moving to pandemic laws recently
 Lessons from the facemask monopoly system in Taiwan to tackle
the COVID-19 challenge, Management and Medical Sciences
Interdisciplinary Conference, Dates: October 30 - November 1,
2020.
 Viewing COVID-19 Measures under the Rule of Law Perspective: A
Comparative Law Analyze of the Measures taken by the Four Asian
Tigers
 Taiwan, Covid-19 pandemic Covid-19 relief measures: Environment,
Health and Safety Law perspective, International Bar Association,
https://www.ibanet.org/Document/Default.aspx?DocumentUid=FDE
43D94-76D0-4965-989D-652342573FCA
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3. I. Situation
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4. Taiwan’s successful lessons all over the media and
world
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5. Big drop/fall recently ….
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6. Why is Taiwan considered to be successful?
Benchmark: Mainly the numbers
https://www.cdc.gov.tw/En
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7. Not to mention the almost perfect local situation
more than 2/3 year….
• https://focustaiwan.tw/society/202012220013 7

8. Not to mention very high living quality.
• Almost business as usual
21 February 2021
December 2020 in food court of
carrefour December 2020 in food court
Eslite department store
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9. New year eve celebration
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10. BAU in food court of the large hospital(43
hectares)
• 24 November 2020
•
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11. Traced back to Ordinary life in June 2020
life without masks….when summer began
• 20 June 2020
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12. II. Why successful? (official
version)
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13. Official website:
A multi-lingual website to promote Taiwan’s
successful story
• https://covid19.mohw.gov.tw/en/mp-206.html
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14. Eight key factors
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15. If focusing on legal measures
Facemask rationing scheme
• Taking all masks manufactured since February 2020
• More than 6000 NHI (national health insurance) franchised
pharmacies to distribute the quota
• The creation of named based system to purchase facemasks
• export ban
Legal basis: Article 54, Communicable Disease Control
Act
• “During the period the central epidemic command center is in
existence, government organizations at various levels, in accordance
with instructions of the commanding officer, may expropriate or
requisite private land, products, buildings, devices, facilities,
pharmaceuticals and medical devices for disease control practices,
facilities for the treatment of contamination, transportation means,
and other designated disease control resources announced by the
central competent authority, and adequate compensations shall be
made to appropriate parties.” 15

16. My full
comment…...
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17. My short comment:
1. no facemask mandate til early April 2020
• In spite of the
government
recommendation of no
need to wear facemask
for healthy persons,
everyone wear
facemask voluntarily.
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18. Short comment 2. Queuing for your life…
Long queuing every day til mid April
Queuing for hours
Voluntary again
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https://news.ltn.com.tw/news/life/breakingnews/3059363

19. Short comment 3: selfish export ban(?) and then donating ＃
Taiwan can help
Diplomatic crisis: affecting the facemask supply in Singapore
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20. Short comment 4. the rationales for such
facemask rationing scheme already fade….?
• February:
• Global shortage and the lock down of major
suppliers of China, such as Hubei Province
• Mid or end of March: flooding supply of facemask on
the markets
• I imported 1000 facemasks on 25 March 2020
• Mid April:
• Taiwan was still queuing for the facemasks under
the rationing scheme
• VS The rest of the world: buying in boxes unit?
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21. While Taiwan is in
the middle of quota
system, Japan…..
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22. Short comment 5
difficult to enforce the facemask mandate in
private spaces
• No wonder…..
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23. If focusing on legal measures
2. 14 days home quarantine ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆
• After entering Taiwan
• When identifying likely contacts with
the confirmed cases
• 14 days centralized quarantine is
quite late and only for Philippine and
Indonesia workers
• Legal basis: art. 36 of the
Communicable Disease Control Act
• Very high fine 10-30 thousand USD
• The rules on “one household, one
quarantine person requirement” launched
in mid January 2021
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24. Controversy: is it legal to scrutinize “GPS” data of
the home quarantine people without court
decision
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25. The proportionality/due process of such
measure
• This fine is really high…..
• Going out with facemasks vs going
out without facemasks
Proportionality
“illegal(?)”
access to the
GPS data ?
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26. Loophole…
Run away… home quarantine people…
• My personal experience
• Izakaya, Friday night, 25
September 2020
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27. Usually no
testing is
conducted
after 14 days
if without
symptom
• General belief in testing “with
symptom”
• General belief in 14 days quarantine
could prevent the virus from
spreading.
• Usually only being requested to stay
at home for 14 days when likely to
contact with the confirmed cases
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28. Other potential reasons announced by the
government
one of the world earliest measure against covid-19
• Taiwan CDC classified COVID-19 as a Category 5 communicable
disease on January 15, 2020
Yet how about the heavy traffic to the rest of the world
due to Chinese new year and president/legislator
election (December to early January).
• More than 100 thousand campaign events are usual.
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29. To sum up
Local :
•Facemask
rationing and
mandate
Incoming
passengers:
•14 days home or
(centralized)
quarantine
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30. You may wonder:
Can you believe in these numbers ?
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31. III. Why successful? (my
version)
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32. Limited testing is very good for the low
numbers
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33. Uncertainty as there is limited testing
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https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus-testing

34. General belief in the importance of testing
• Why is data on testing important?
• No country knows the total number of people
infected with COVID-19. All we know is the
infection status of those who have been tested. All
those who have a lab-confirmed infection are
counted as confirmed cases.
• This means that the counts of confirmed cases
depend on how much a country actually
tests. Without testing there is no data.
• Testing is our window onto the pandemic and how
it is spreading. Without data on who is infected by
the virus we have no way of understanding the
pandemic. Without this data we can not know
which countries are doing well, and which are just
underreporting cases and deaths.
• To interpret any data on confirmed cases we need
to know how much testing for COVID-19 the
country actually does.
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35. Yet not Taiwan government
• 1. false positive/false negative are both dangerous
• 2. mass testing at the airport would lead to the
wastefulness of precious medical resources and public
money .
• 3. as there is no community infection now, testing
would increase the risk of virus spreading.
• 4. 14 days quarantine is sufficed to control the
spreading.
• 5. referring to Hamburg(Germany)’s failure mass testing
as the reason not to have mass testing
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36. Your feeling, I know…..
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37. Testing privilege for even self-paid testing
Generally, the requrest for testing should fullfil the criteria such as:
• with sympton,
• job requirements,
• going abroad (Short-term business travelers, study abroad) etc.
This requirment for even self-paid testing last long til the annoucement of 2020
Winter and Autume Program
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e.g., in mid June, Can you apply for a self-paid test without the
criteria?
Yes ?
No ?

38. Low transparency on footage and tracking of
the confirmed cases
•Selective ( not all
cases)
•Very limited data
(not all locations)
•Delayed
publication
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In the name of protection personal privacy/business

39. Not to mention
limited testing scope after confirmed cases
Limited testing mandate for high risk workers
Lower CT in Taiwan
Limited Random testing research
……
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40. In my view
Whether Taiwan is successful?
• Fighting enemy in the darkness ?
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41. For more details, please see my GPN country
report
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42. IV. Conclusion
and the lesson
to the world
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43. Good luck and/or good policy?
• “The paper attributed a
combination of "good luck
and good policy" for having
relatively few coronavirus
deaths while at the same
time managing to keep "the
losses in economic activity
relatively low." ”
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44. Science based/evidence based approach ?
The spectrum of testing
north korea
Democratic Republic of Congo
Madagascar Myanmar Taiwan
Vietnam Nigeria Uganda
Ethiopia Kenya Malawi South
Sudan Bangladesh
The rest of
the world
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45. Rule of law is weak
In spite of having a new law on covid-19
• Special Act for Prevention, Relief and
Revitalization Measures for Severe
Pneumonia with Novel Pathogens
• Announced Date： 2020-02-25
• Amended Date： 2020-04-21
Heavily relying on:
• Abstract clause of Special Act:” The
Commander of the Central Epidemic
Command Center may, for disease
prevention and control requirements,
implement necessary response actions
or measures.”(Art.7 )
• The existing commutable disease act
• Very low intensity of rule of law
mechanism- “Guideline” more than 50
guidelines
• Newsletter (?)
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46. Lesson can be learned to the rest of the world?
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