Epidemic Prevention Must Be More Transparent After Our Residents in Wuhan Are Ferried Home

 Epidemic Prevention Must Be More Transparent After Our Residents in Wuhan Are Ferried Home

United Daily News Editorial (Taipei, Taiwan)

February 4, 2020

 Translation of an Excerpt

Under the assistance of the Mainland authorities, last night a chartered flight ferried home over 200 Taiwan residents stranded in Wuhan; after arrival, they were separately settled in five localities in the north, central, and south Taiwan for observation and quarantine. There are two major reasons why it was necessary to transport these residents home: one is to allow the healthy to be isolated from Wuhan, a city engulfed in the dangerous epidemic area, so as to relieve them from the threat of the novel coronavirus; secondly, while it is not certain whether they have contracted the virus, once in Taiwan, they can enjoy relatively more adequate medical attention resources and manpower care.

Observing the epidemic situation on the Mainland, the death toll has exceeded that of SARS. This shows that the Wuhan pneumonia epidemic is still at the plateau of escalation. What is to be congratulated is that up to February 2^nd, the accumulated number of healed patients has reached 479, the first time this number has surpassed the death toll following the shutdown of Wuhan, demonstrating that the medical circle has probably grasped more treatments to counter the novel coronavirus.

There are currently only 11 confirmed cases in Taiwan; after ferrying Taiwan residents home, the government ought to, even more so, abide by the principle of transparency and openness in making public more data, allowing the public understand the progress. Especially, if patients in Taiwan are discharged from hospitals after being quarantined, the government should also let society know the progress.

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