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How a Reddit-like forum helped Taiwan prepare early for Covid-19
Taiwan’s 25-year-old forum PTT helped limit the spread of the coronavirus
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This article originally appeared on ABACUS
In the early hours of December 31st, Luo Yi-jun couldn’t sleep. So he browsed Taiwan’s Reddit-like forum, PTT.
As deputy director for Taiwan’s Centres for Disease Control, one post under the “Gossiping” category caught his eye: Word of an unknown disease causing pneumonia in Wuhan, China. The post included screenshots of a notice from Wuhan health authorities. One poster even asked if this was the second coming of Sars.
Luo fired off an email to his colleagues. That turned out to be Taiwan’s first warning about the disease that would turn into a global pandemic just a few months later: Covid-19.
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Less than a day after Luo’s email, Taiwan was already rolling out epidemic prevention measures. Border quarantine policies and screenings were implemented, and the government started communicating with the World Health Organisation and mainland China epidemic authorities.
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The story was recounted by Chuang Jen-hsiang, spokesman for the CDC’s epidemic response command centre, in an article from Taiwan’s Central News Agency on Thursday.
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