Abstract
In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Taiwan has been one of the best performers in the world with extremely low infections and deaths. This success can be attributed to the long experiences dealing with natural disasters and communicable diseases. However, with different disastrous characteristics, the disaster management systems for communicable diseases and natural disasters are very different in terms of laws, plans, frameworks, and emergency operations. Taking the response to COVID-19 pandemic as a study subject, we found that disaster management for communicable diseases can be improved through a comparison with natural disasters, and vice versa. First, having wider and longer impacts than natural disasters, the plans and framework for communicable diseases in Taiwan focus more on national and regional scales. Local governments would need more capacity support including budgets and training to conduct investigations and quarantine during the COVID-19 pandemic. Second, for quick response, the emergency operation for communicable diseases was designed to be more flexible than that for natural disasters by giving the commander more authority to adjust to the circumstances. The commanding system requires a more objective consultation group to prevent arbitrary decisions against the COVID-19 pandemic. Finally, risk governance is important for communicable diseases as well as for natural disasters. Additional efforts should be made to enhance vulnerability assessment, disaster reduction, and risk communication for shaping responses and policies in an efficient and coordinating way.
Highlights
The novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), and named by the International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses [1], has been rapidly spread worldwide since the end of 2019 and has resulted in great impacts on health, society, economics, and the environment [2–4]
While communicable disasters are categorized as biological disasters in Taiwan, in the response to the COVID-19 pandemic, we found that the disaster management systems and corresponding operations for communicable disasters are very different from those for natural disasters
Being regulated by different laws, the disaster management systems for communicable diseases and natural disasters are different in terms of framework, plans, and emergency operations
Summary
The novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), and named by the International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses [1], has been rapidly spread worldwide since the end of 2019 and has resulted in great impacts on health, society, economics, and the environment [2–4]. By Jun 30, 2021, the infections of COVID-19 continued to rise with over 182 million confirmed cases and 3.9 million deaths in over 190 countries [6]. Taiwan is one of the best performers in confronting the COVID-19 pandemic in the world. According to the COVID-19 infection statistics, Taiwan had only 1,290 infections and 12 deaths in total (54.16 infections and 0.50 deaths per million) before May 14, 2021. Taiwan experienced a sudden rise of infections to 14,804 people (621.58 infections and 27.21 deaths per million) in the period of May 15 to June 30, 2021, the overall infections are still much lower than those in the United States (101,706 infections and 1,827 deaths per million), the United Kingdom (70,962 infections and 1,891 deaths per million), the Netherlands (99,957 infections and 1,052 deaths per million), Australia (1,202 infections and 36 deaths per million), and Canada (37,699 infections and 696 deaths per million)
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