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Learning from the past: Taiwan's responses to COVID-19 versus SARS
Muh-Yong Yen1, Yung-Feng Yen2, Shey-Ying Chen3
1Division of Infectious Diseases, Taipei City Hospital, Taipei, Taiwan; Division of Infectious Diseases, Cheng Hsin General Hospital, School of Medicine, National Yang-Ming University, Taipei, Taiwan.
Objectives:
To evaluate the prevalence of infection prevention behaviors in Taiwan-wearing facemasks and alcohol-based hand hygiene (AHH)-and compare their practice rates during SARS and COVID-19.
Methods:
We surveyed 2328 Taiwanese from July 29 to August 6, 2020, assessing demographics, information sources, and preventive behaviors during the 2003 SARS outbreaks, 2009 pandemic influenza H1N1, COVID-19, and with post-survey intentions. Characteristics associated with the practice of preventive behaviors in 2020 were identified through logistic regression.
Results:
Preventive behaviors were conscientiously practiced by 70.2% of participants. Compared with 2003 SARS/2009 H1N1, the percentages of facemask use (66.6% vs 99.2% [indoors], P < 0.001) and on-person AHH (44.2% vs 65.4% [hand sanitizers], P < 0.001) significantly increasedduring 2020 COVID-19. Highest adherence to preventive behaviors in 2020 was among females (adjusted odds ratio [aOR], 1.72), those receiving government COVID-19 information (aOR, 1.52), participants recruited from primary-care clinics (aOR, 1.43), and those who practiced AHH during 2003 SARS/2009 H1N1 (aOR, 1.37).
Conclusions:
Government leadership, healthcare providers risk communication, and public cooperation rapidly mitigated the spread of COVID-19 in Taiwan even before vaccination. Future global efforts must implement such population-based preventive behaviors at a level above the viral-transmission-threshold, particularly in areas with fast-spreading SARS-CoV-2 variants.
