Taiwan has recorded the world’s second lowest excess mortality rate — a way to evaluate the efficacy of disease control — during the COVID-19 pandemic, the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) said Friday, citing British newspaper The Economist.

Taiwan scored minus 8 every 100,000 people in excess mortality between Feb. 1, 2020 and May 31, 2022, second only to New Zealand’s minus 29 during roughly the same period, according to a study by The Economist.

The findings showed that Taiwan achieved the world’s second best disease control as the smaller the number the smaller the mortality attributed to COVID-19, the CECC argued.

Excess deaths take the number of people who die from any cause in a given region and period, and then compare it with an historical baseline from recent years, according to the weekly newspaper.

That measure gives a better picture of the impact of COVID-19, as the total number of fatalities caused by the pandemic is often underestimated, it said.

For instance, The Economist said, the official COVID-19 death statistics in many countries exclude victims who did not test positive for coronavirus before dying-which can be a substantial majority in places with little capacity for testing.

CECC spokesman Chuang Jen-hsiang (???) said during the daily press briefing that Taiwan also saw a relatively lower death rate related to COVID-19 compared to the rest of the world.

Over the past two years, Taiwan reported 277 COVID-related deaths every 1 million people, slightly higher than Japan’s 248 and Singapore’s 233.

During that period, the United States had 3,151, while the United Kingdom reported 2,707, Hong Kong 1,269, South Korea 478 and New Zealand 299, Chuang said.

In response to media inquiries citing local doctors’ predictions that domestic cases in Taiwan will drop below 10,000 per day from July 11, Chuang said that is a possibility.

However, he urged the public to take precautions particularly amid more frequent travel during the summer vacation because the number of new cases is declining at a relatively slow speed.

Taiwan reported 35,699 new domestic COVID-19 cases and 121 deaths on Friday.

Source: Focus Taiwan News Channel