At 6:30 am on December 31, 2019, La Nhat Quan, deputy general manager of CDC Taiwan, woke up when he received the notification on the phone.

His colleagues in the social network monitoring unit of the Taiwan Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) uncovered several articles about unexplained pneumonia in Wuhan.

Looking at photos of laboratory reports as well as messages exchanged between doctors in Wuhan, Luo, an infectious disease expert, suspected that something new, not SARS, had happened.

"But the source is credible or not, and reading this information does not prove that a new disease has emerged," La recounted his thoughts at the time.

"Today's news sources show that at least 7 cases of atypical pneumonia have been reported in Wuhan, China. City health officials responded to media reports that the cases were not SARS, but the samples

Around 13:30 pm that day, the Wuhan Municipal Health Commission announced 27 cases of pneumonia related to the South China Seafood Market.

Three weeks later, a top Chinese government expert confirmed the virus could be transmitted from person to person on January 20.

But Taiwan did not wait until then to take preventive measures.

Mr. La's email asking colleagues to send to WHO eventually causes geopolitical storm.

Chen's statement "fueled the fire" between the US and WHO, when Washington accused the organization of "colluding" with China to hide the disease and make the world waste valuable time.

Taiwan has no membership at WHO due to Beijing's opposition to the argument that the island is part of China's unified territory.

As tensions escalated, and after WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus accused Taiwan of supporting racism against him, Taiwan officials publicly emailed December 31, 2019.

The Taiwanese diplomatic agency said that their use of the phrase "quarantine for treatment" in email is proof that "there is clearly a risk of the virus being transmitted from person to person, because if not infected then measures should be taken."

However, medical experts have conflicting opinions on this issue.

WHO denied the allegation of ignoring the warning from Taiwan.

According to Tedros, Taiwan is not the first party to warn of the situation in Wuhan.

Many health experts, academics and government officials, especially the United States, criticize WHO for being "gullible" to China.

For Taiwan, what has happened before makes them skeptical.

Two Taiwanese clinicians, along with experts from Hong Kong and Macau, were among the first information-seeking missions to Wuhan.

Chuang Yin-ching, one of the experts in the delegation, doubted that Wuhan officials "tried to hide the information" because when asked about the possibility of infection of the strange disease, the answer was always unclear.

Finally, an official admitted to finding the suspected case: the couple in a family had strange pneumonia even though the wife did not go to the seafood market at all.

On the day the experts left, Wuhan issued a statement acknowledging that "there may be limited human-to-human transmission", but not a strong spread in the community.

CDC Taiwan said it had shared "brief information" about the visit with "like-minded countries" but declined to give specific disclosures.

Taiwan has been very vigilant, Mr. Luo said.

Ironically, being excluded from WHO could be "in the risk of having luck" with Taiwan, according to Mr. La.

Taiwan has participated in the World Health Assembly (WHA), the WHO decision-making forum, as an observer since 2009, when relations between Beijing and Taipei were warm.

WHO said it is continuing to facilitate its experts' interaction with Taiwan, including allowing Taiwanese medical professionals to participate in two WHO WHO anti-Covid-19 networks established in January.

As a non-member, Taiwan always maintains that "we must have missed important information".

However, Luo Nhat Quan still emphasizes the importance of WHO.