By April, nearly 3 million people globally have been infected with COVID-19 and almost 200,000 people have died. However, while Taiwan was one of first countries to be exposed to the pandemic and was even predicted to be one of the countries to be worst-hit, Taiwan has to date managed to keep the number of confirmed cases to less than 450. We decided to use the Risk Governance Framework developed by the International Risk Governance Council (IRGC) to assess how Taiwan has managed to suppress the growth of COVID-19 within its borders, and to look at some of the ways Taiwan had been successful. The framework comprises four main aspects: pre-assessment, appraisal, characterization and evaluation, and management.
Key Point:
(1) Pre-assessment includes identifying the risks and opportunities early on, as well as being cognizant of the warning signs with immediacy, so as to be able to take action in a timely manner.
(2) An appraisal of the risks involve identifying the hazard and conducting concern assessment to understand the social concerns, so as to develop relevant options to manage the risks and address the possible socio-economic impacts.
(3) A characterization and evaluation of the risks involve assessing the seriousness of the risks, and developing corresponding risk reduction measures according to an evaluation of the tolerability of the risk and acceptability of the measures.
(4) Management of the risks entail identifying various scenarios to manage the risks, and monitoring the development of the risk so as to adjust the options to for risk governance accordingly accordingly.
However, during crisis and risk management, many of these aspects become interoperable, and would even need to work in tandem with one another, as the uncertainty, complexity and rapid changes of the COVID-19 pandemic requires fast-footed responses to deal with the crisis.
In this podcast, we explore how Taiwan has thus far managed to contain the spread of the COVID-19, by using specific examples to illustrate the various elements under the Risk Governance Framework.
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