Opinion: Learning from Taiwan about responding to Covid-19 — and using electronic health records
Covid-19 is not an evenly distributed pandemic. The United States is an outlier — and not in a good way — with more than 2.5 million cases and 125,000 deaths, or about 36 deaths per 100,000 people. One of the strongest performers is Taiwan, with 446 confirmed cases and just seven deaths for nearly 24 million citizens, or 0.03 deaths per 100,000. On a per capita basis, the U.S. has 1,200 times as many Covid-19 deaths as Taiwan.
Lost in the fractious and frankly broken conversation about reopening the economy is a simple truism: containing the virus is the best fiscal stimulus. The U.S. Congressional Budget Office is projecting double-digit contractions in the gross domestic product for 2020 and unemployment rates going up to 16% this year — the highest they have been since the Great Depression. By comparison, Taiwan’s central bank expects growth to slow to about 1.5% for the year, and unemployment has “surged” to 4.1%.
