Since the World Health Organisation (WHO) declared Covid-19 a pandemic, more than 180,000 people around the world have been infected. Rumours related to coronavirus also surged on Facebook and Twitter, while trustworthy health advice is unlikely to go viral and correct the misleading information.
With less 100 confirmed cases, Taiwan, an island of 23 million people just off the coast of China, has managed to avoid the outbreak of the disease. Apart from an early action in January to ban visitors from China, Hong Kong and Macau soon after the number of coronavirus cases began to rise, Taiwan also use technologies to deliver the latest and accurate information, undermining the effect of disinformation.
Let chat BOT assist you
Since the first case of COVID-19 in Taiwan, the government decided to hold two press conference a day, keeping a transparent response to the virus outbreak with its citizens, undermines public panics to the disease.
LINE, a Japanese messaging app popular in Taiwan, plays an important role on delivering latest information from Taiwan government. In the official account of Taiwan’s Ministry of Health and Welfare, citizens are able to interact with chat BOT and get advice from the authority, such as travel restriction and the details of latest cases.
The government is also using stickers and images to encourage citizens interaction with the chat bot. A daily greeting message also set up to make sure people would not miss any announcement.
Collaborate with hackers
With the rising demand of face masks, Taiwanese government has banned masks export to ensure sufficient domestic supply. Six million face masks would be distributed across the country. Though individuals are allowed to purchase three masks a week, it was so popular that face masks were usually out of stock in the central cities.
To deal with this, Taiwan’s Digital Minister Audrey Tang collaborates with local hackers and engineers, releasing a real-time map of local face mask supplies. Citizens are allowed to search the stock available beforehand.
Tang is also making the effort to combine data from the National Health Insurance Administration and Immigration Agency to identify patients’ travel history in the past 14 days. With data from citizens’ household registration systems and foreigners’ entry cards, this is seen as a vital measure to identify the risk of every individuals when they are under self-quarantined and monitor through their mobile phones.
Using AI to prevent disease
Tang has been a prominent advocate of transparent digital democracy in Taiwan, aiming to build a system where government, experts, and citizens could share data together and solve societal issues. During the time of tackling the threat from COVID-19, she was praised as “a key figure in Taiwan’s national epidemic prevention team” who set the example of using artificial intelligence in disease prevention.