Proposed Gold Standard of Taiwan COVID-19 response vs. cost of inaction as typified by the UK response. -How and why a Zero Coronavirus Mortality is now possible

Jagjit Soar
2020 figshare.com  
World data regarding the management of COVID-19 has shown remarkable variations. Byobserving the methods of successful countries (Taiwan being a particularly good examplewith only 7 coronavirus deaths, population 23 million), it is now conceived possible thatzero coronavirus mortality can be achieved for a new viral pandemic. Taiwan'scomparatively non existent mortality rate with the most rapid (c.12 week) return to nearnormality in Taiwan's economy (and similarly for at least a dozen other
more » ... ons §) hasdefied all predictions. The UK is a very good example of an unsuccessful managementstrategy with over 65,000 excess deaths from a population 67 million. To recover from adeep national infection with widespread mortality such as the UK predicament, an excellenttest-track-trace-isolate programme with approximately 2% or more of the population beingtested per day and the results acted upon within 24 hours is required. This should also besupported by an excellent contact tracer application. Countries such as the UK have failedmany times to achieve this level of testing and tracing proficiency. The joint economic andhealth consequences for continued short term infection control failures by nations includingthe UK will be devastating over the next 10 plus years. The minor financial gain of poorlyfocused half measures and underestimating risk that has clearly failed to deal with thepandemic and satisfactorily revive the economy by the UK government, will cost dearly toboth individuals and to society. Likewise for many other failed nations. A 'StateGenerated Health Failure' emergency status should be considered for any country in thedeveloped world that has in excess of 500 deaths per 50 million population, 6 months intoa pandemic. Both practically zero or even zero coronavirus deaths and fast control of arising epidemic are now possible. A system of scientific benchmarking with 'goldstandard' countries such as Taiwan and/or several other nations [§] and applying theirexacting strategy to a highly infected nation such as [...]
doi:10.6084/m9.figshare.13079093.v1 fatcat:fhwo6yg3ubbtdi23o3q363vl5q