Taiwan has marked 200 days without a locally transmitted COVID-19 case - the only country to reach such a milestone.
The island of 23 million people saw its last instance of community transmission on April 12. Overall, it's recorded just 550 confirmed cases and seven deaths, according to the Johns Hopkins University Coronavirus Resource Center.
Infectious disease physician and professor at the Australian National University Medical School Peter Collignon believes Taiwan's "probably had the best result around the world".
"Taiwan is the only major country that has so far been able to keep community transmission of COVID eliminated," Collignon told Bloomberg.
He added it's "even more impressive" due to the country's density, where there are 673 people per square kilometre.
Taiwan began screening all arriving passengers from the virus' epicentre, Wuhan, China, on December 31 as soon as it received reports of the then-unknown virus in the city. It then closed its borders to Wuhan residents on January 23, suspended tours to China on January 25 and banned all Chinese visitors on February 6.
In mid-March, non-Taiwanese citizens were banned from entering unless they met certain guidelines, such as if they held an Alien Resident Certificate or were on diplomatic or other special missions to the country. Those who can arrive in the country are required to quarantine at home for 14 days.
When the country had active community cases, it required all contacts of a case, even if they tested negative, to quarantine at home for 14 days. This was enforced by authorities tracking a person's location through cellular signals from their phone.
According to Taiwan's former vice president and epidemiologist Chen Chien-jen, about 340,000 people so far have been under home quarantine and fewer than 1000 have been fined for breaking it.
"We sacrificed 14 days of 340,000 people in exchange for normal lives for 23 million people," Chien-jen said, according to Bloomberg.
Taiwan has still been recording new cases, but they've all been imported and caught at the border. There are currently 35 active cases in the country.
