Members of the COVID-19 Team at the President of the Polish Academy of Sciences (PAN) met online on November 2, 2021 with scientists from Taiwan. They talked about the course of the pandemic in both countries and how to fight the coronavirus.

At the meeting, experts discussed the determinants of the end of the COVID-19 pandemic and assessed institutional anti-epidemic measures such as testing, lockdown and contact tracing.

The researchers also analyzed what mistakes in the pandemic could have been avoided and what the most important lessons can be learned from the course of the pandemic so far in both countries. Part of the meeting was focused on excess deaths in Taiwan; the impact of the SARS-1 outbreak in 2002 and the Ebola epidemic on Taiwan’s response to COVID-19 in 2020, and the issue of mandatory vaccination and anti-vaccine attitudes.