Societal responses and policing during “lockdown” of the COVID-19 pandemic: A comparative study between Taiwan and the U.S.

Abstract

The unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic has caused catastrophic impacts on public health and shrunk economic activities that reshaped nearly every ordinary person's daily life. The objective of this manuscript is to compare the pandemic-caused lifestyle alterations, public health orders and enforcement, societal responses, and pandemic policing in two democracies - the U.S. and Taiwan. Both societies experienced rapid changes of daily routines among residents, and non-medical interventions like quarantine, social distancing, and shelter-in-place/lockdown were implemented. The police were used to enforce public health laws and orders, although the structures of the police were different. The pandemic-related tasks that the police have been assigned or chosen to enforce might have reshaped their images and redefined their roles in both societies that are similar in political system and urban-rural difference but different in socioeconomic status and social-historical context. Unfortunately, both Americans and Taiwanese scapegoated a small group of citizens for either bringing in the virus or failing to defend the homeland. Through comparing these two societies, this paper concludes that internal unity and collaboration is more important than democracy itself in determining public health success or failure. This paper also concludes with implications of police training and education in the post-COVID-19 era.