Taiwan is credited with sharply limiting the spread of coronavirus on the island by pairing and analyzing the electronic health and travel records of its residents, along with enacting other emergency measures.
But privacy experts say legal protections would prevent similar big data use in Canada.
When adjusted for population size, Taiwan has about 70 per cent fewer cases than Canada, despite being just 130 kilometres from China, where the outbreak began, and having thousands of daily visitors from the mainland — 2.7 million in total in 2019 alone.
Both Canada and Taiwan reported their first presumptive cases of coronavirus within days of each other in January, but by March they had diverged sharply in the number of infections reported.
As Canada struggles to flatten the curve — or slow the spread of the virus — Taiwan has prevented a curve.
(CBC)
Dr. Jason Wang, director of the centre for policy, outcomes and prevention in Stanford University’s school of medicine, said Taiwanese authorities were “vigilant.”
“They acted swiftly and they brought in measures to contain the spread of the virus,” said Wang, who frequently teaches in Taiwan.
Wang co-authored “Response to COVID-19 in Taiwan: Big Data Analytics, New Technology and Testing,” which was published in the journal JAMA. In that analysis, he noted that the island has been on alert for epidemics since the SARS outbreak in 2003.
According to his analysis, Taiwanese officials began boarding flights from Wuhan, the initial epicentre of the outbreak, as early as Dec. 31, 2019, shortly after China disclosed its first cases of the novel coronavirus. Eventually, certain flights were banned and visas for visitors to Taiwan were cancelled.
Triaging with text messaging
The government has since barred all foreign travellers from entering the island.
Taiwan also created a health questionnaire that passengers accessed by scanning a QR code with their phones while still on planes as they were arriving.
Depending on their health status, they were sent a text message providing them with a health declaration pass to fast-track through immigration. Anyone at a higher risk of infection was urged to go into self-isolation at home and tracked via their cellphone to make sure they stayed there. False reporting of health information became a fineable offence.
“So this way they could triage a large number of passengers very quickly without lining up in the airport, which in itself is a risk,” Wang said.
After activating its central epidemic command centre on Jan. 20, the Taiwanese government integrated its health insurance database with its immigration database to create a real-time super data source that became central to identifying people most at risk of infection.
The database is accessible by health professionals and certain government officials in Taiwan and includes a patient’s travel history and personal information. Health officials regularly use text messaging to communicate with patients and follow up in person.
Dr. Iris Gorfinkel, a Toronto physician and researcher, has long advocated for electronic medical records accessible to doctors and their patients.
But she said Taiwan’s use of big data to respond to the coronavirus outbreak wouldn’t be possible under Canada’s current privacy legislation.
Dr. Jason Wang, director of the centre for policy, outcomes and prevention at Stanford University’s medical school, said Taiwanese authorities ‘acted swiftly and they brought in measures to contain the spread of the virus.’ (Damian Marhefka/Stanford University)
“I think that in the Canadian context, it would be viewed as rather dystopian,” she said.
In Canada, health and travel records are also siloed under provincial or territorial and federal jurisdictions respectively.
Brenda McPhail, director of privacy and technology at the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, said that’s “a good thing.”
However, she said that if there was public appetite in Canada for big data use during times of a health crisis, “there should be an expiration date.”
She said even though “it may actually be helpful in mitigating risk,” there would have to be legal protections in place to ensure “extreme” data collection doesn’t continue indefinitely because “we’ve been habituated to the idea that it’s OK to collect more than we normally would about individual behaviour or movements.”
Despite being so close to the epicenter of the outbreak in China, with a combination of swift public health measures and big data, Taiwan is reporting fewer than 80 COVID-19 cases. 2:01
Wang also noted the extraordinary lengths with which Taiwan went to secure personal protective equipment for health-care workers and residents.
The government not only banned the export of protective masks, but it also made price gouging illegal and the military eventually assisted in increasing mask production to ensure everyone who needed one would have access.
Nobody wants to get quarantined, but at least you’re treated like a person, not a virus.– Dr. Jason Wang
Gorfinkel, who’s also a family physician, said she was “actually kind of admiring that because my struggle with not having masks in my office has been an ongoing one for the past month.”
While Taiwan’s response to the coronavirus is aggressive, Wang found the government was careful to not tread on people’s dignity and rights, even when fines were introduced for breaking isolation orders or spreading misinformation about COVID-19.
People in Taiwan expect a high level of liberty and score highest on personal freedom in Asia, after Japan, according to the U.S.-based human rights watchdog Freedom House. Taiwan is not a member of the United Nations so its human rights record is not evaluated by the body.
Some Taiwanese patients in isolation are also given supplies such as hand wipes, forehead thermometers and food during home visits from workers who check on their welfare.
Wang said that “makes it more tolerable. I mean, nobody wants to get quarantined, but at least you’re treated like a person, not a virus.”
VANCOUVER – Contract negotiations resume today in Vancouver in a labour dispute that has paralyzed container cargo shipping at British Columbia’s ports since Monday.
The BC Maritime Employers Association and International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 514 are scheduled to meet for the next three days in mediated talks to try to break a deadlock in negotiations.
The union, which represents more than 700 longshore supervisors at ports, including Vancouver, Prince Rupert and Nanaimo, has been without a contract since March last year.
The latest talks come after employers locked out workers in response to what it said was “strike activity” by union members.
The start of the lockout was then followed by several days of no engagement between the two parties, prompting federal Labour Minister Steven MacKinnon to speak with leaders on both sides, asking them to restart talks.
MacKinnon had said that the talks were “progressing at an insufficient pace, indicating a concerning absence of urgency from the parties involved” — a sentiment echoed by several business groups across Canada.
In a joint letter, more than 100 organizations, including the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, Business Council of Canada and associations representing industries from automotive and fertilizer to retail and mining, urged the government to do whatever it takes to end the work stoppage.
“While we acknowledge efforts to continue with mediation, parties have not been able to come to a negotiated agreement,” the letter says. “So, the federal government must take decisive action, using every tool at its disposal to resolve this dispute and limit the damage caused by this disruption.
“We simply cannot afford to once again put Canadian businesses at risk, which in turn puts Canadian livelihoods at risk.”
In the meantime, the union says it has filed a complaint to the Canada Industrial Relations Board against the employers, alleging the association threatened to pull existing conditions out of the last contract in direct contact with its members.
“The BCMEA is trying to undermine the union by attempting to turn members against its democratically elected leadership and bargaining committee — despite the fact that the BCMEA knows full well we received a 96 per cent mandate to take job action if needed,” union president Frank Morena said in a statement.
The employers have responded by calling the complaint “another meritless claim,” adding the final offer to the union that includes a 19.2 per cent wage increase over a four-year term remains on the table.
“The final offer has been on the table for over a week and represents a fair and balanced proposal for employees, and if accepted would end this dispute,” the employers’ statement says. “The offer does not require any concessions from the union.”
The union says the offer does not address the key issue of staffing requirement at the terminals as the port introduces more automation to cargo loading and unloading, which could potentially require fewer workers to operate than older systems.
The Port of Vancouver is the largest in Canada and has seen a number of labour disruptions, including two instances involving the rail and grain storage sectors earlier this year.
A 13-day strike by another group of workers at the port last year resulted in the disruption of a significant amount of shipping and trade.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2024.
The Royal Canadian Legion says a new partnership with e-commerce giant Amazon is helping boost its veterans’ fund, and will hopefully expand its donor base in the digital world.
Since the Oct. 25 launch of its Amazon.ca storefront, the legion says it has received nearly 10,000 orders for poppies.
Online shoppers can order lapel poppies on Amazon in exchange for donations or buy items such as “We Remember” lawn signs, Remembrance Day pins and other accessories, with all proceeds going to the legion’s Poppy Trust Fund for Canadian veterans and their families.
Nujma Bond, the legion’s national spokesperson, said the organization sees this move as keeping up with modern purchasing habits.
“As the world around us evolves we have been looking at different ways to distribute poppies and to make it easier for people to access them,” she said in an interview.
“This is definitely a way to reach a wider number of Canadians of all ages. And certainly younger Canadians are much more active on the web, on social media in general, so we’re also engaging in that way.”
Al Plume, a member of a legion branch in Trenton, Ont., said the online store can also help with outreach to veterans who are far from home.
“For veterans that are overseas and are away, (or) can’t get to a store they can order them online, it’s Amazon.” Plume said.
Plume spent 35 years in the military with the Royal Engineers, and retired eight years ago. He said making sure veterans are looked after is his passion.
“I’ve seen the struggles that our veterans have had with Veterans Affairs … and that’s why I got involved, with making sure that the people get to them and help the veterans with their paperwork.”
But the message about the Amazon storefront didn’t appear to reach all of the legion’s locations, with volunteers at Branch 179 on Vancouver’s Commercial Drive saying they hadn’t heard about the online push.
Holly Paddon, the branch’s poppy campaign co-ordinator and bartender, said the Amazon partnership never came up in meetings with other legion volunteers and officials.
“I work at the legion, I work with the Vancouver poppy office and I go to the meetings for the Vancouver poppy campaign — which includes all the legions in Vancouver — and not once has this been mentioned,” she said.
Paddon said the initiative is a great idea, but she would like to have known more about it.
The legion also sells a larger collection of items at poppystore.ca.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2024.
