The Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) says that the public should continue to have faith in Taiwan’s prevention measures. That’s after health officials confirmed on Saturday that a Belgian man in his 20’s had contracted COVID-19, sparking concern about a second wave of domestic infections in Taiwan.
The man in question has been in Taiwan since early May, working as an engineer in Central Taiwan. The CECC has yet to determine where the man was infected. If it is confirmed that he was infected in Taiwan, it would be Taiwan’s first local infection in 110 days.
CECC official Chang Shan-chwen says that if the public expectation is that there will be zero new cases of COVID-19 every day, that will make it very difficult to ease border restrictions. He says that people shouldn’t underestimate how effective Taiwan’s prevention measures have been, just because there are one or two new cases.
Chang says that Taiwan had to overcome many obstacles to contain COVID-19 as successfully as it has. He says that in the beginning of the pandemic, officials had to figure out how to curb outbreaks in hospitals and local communities. Chang says that Taiwan’s health authorities have had contingency plans for a worst-case scenario ever since the pandemic began.