Chen Chien-Jen: The Selfless Politician Who Saved Taiwan From A Major Coronavirus Outbreak

Taiwanese-born Chen Chien-Jen has been rendering service to humanity for years with his research and now at the age of 68, he has given up his Vice President pension to continue in this vein.

Chen Chien Jen was the Vice-President of Taiwan until May 20, 2020, when he opted out of serving as vice president for a second term. He chose instead, to return to his research at Academia Sinica where he was vice-president from 2011 to 2015.

Beforehand, he had been at the coronavirus pandemic forefront as the Vice President and an accomplished epidemiologist. He received his Sc.D in human genetics and epidemiology from Johns Hopkins University in 1982. He and his team of scientists created policies and worked hard to ensure that the total number of cases in Taiwan did not spike. As of July 2, 2020, the nation had recorded only 448 confirmed cases and 7 deaths.

Last December, he swung into action, as soon as he got reports of a ‘mysterious pneumonia’ emerging in Wuhan, China to ensure that Taiwan stayed safe. He ordered the authorities to screen travellers from mainland China and to isolate people showing symptoms of the virus. When the first case landed in Taiwan on January 21, the government started to give out masks. New York Times reports that ‘After an outbreak on a navy ship, he urged officials to test more than 700 crew members with the hope of collecting data for a study on asymptomatic patients.’

But Chen and Taiwan’s preparation against a possible pandemic didn’t just start in December 2019. Chen became the Minister of Health at the height of Taiwan’s SARS outbreak in 2003. He stayed on till 2005 to help contain the virus.

He also helped the country prepare for the next possible outbreak, which saw the government put in some measures. They established a disaster management centre, increased production of protective gear and revised the infectious diseases law. When the Coronavirus pandemic landed in Taiwan they were lucky to have him as vice-president. Asides from working hard to contain the virus, as Vice-President of Taiwan from 2016 to 2020, he tackled pension reform, advocated for marriage equality and helped to improve human rights.

But the coronavirus is one of the things that has informed his current move. Chen Chien Jen has now gone back to the Academia Sinica and says the coronavirus will be a focus of his research. ‘God always leads me, giving me the courage to change the things that I can change, and also giving me peace to accept the things that I cannot change’, he said about his next steps. ‘He gives me the wisdom to distinguish between the things that I can change and things that I cannot change!’