Previously submitted to: Journal of Medical Internet Research (no longer under consideration since Nov 23, 2023)
Date Submitted: Dec 19, 2022
Warning: This is an author submission that is not peer-reviewed or edited. Preprints - unless they show as "accepted" - should not be relied on to guide clinical practice or health-related behavior and should not be reported in news media as established information.
Politics and Policy Drive COVID-19 Deaths in Taiwan and Hong Kong: COVID-19 Surveillance
ABSTRACT
Background:
Before the Omicron outbreak, several countries donated mRNA COVID-19 vaccines to Taiwan when China blocked Taiwan from an initial purchase of vaccines. In contrast, Hong Kong relied on a mixture of mRNA and inactivated viral vaccines, which are less protective against Omicron. This difference in vaccination policy, driven by political aims, offers an opportunity to study the impact of politics on public health.
Objective:
To understand how political policy around the vaccination campaigns in Hong Kong and Taiwan affected COVID-19 mortality rates.
Methods:
This study compared COVID-19 vaccination rates, cumulative death rates, and conditional death rates throughout the Omicron outbreaks in Hong Kong and Taiwan. The primary measure used to compare the impact of health policy in the two locations was the cumulative conditional death rate, or the ratio of total deaths to total SARS-CoV-2 transmissions per 100K population.
Results:
The conditional death rate in Hong Kong was 3.8 times the rate in Taiwan.
Conclusions:
Political interference paradoxically saved lives in Taiwan, as Taiwan ultimately ramped up its vaccination campaign with more effective vaccines just ahead of the Omicron outbreak.
Citation
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