COVID-19恐慌下的風險感知與治理：湖北滯留臺人包機返國過程分析

Risk Perception and Governance under the COVID-19 Pandemic: The Case of Evacuating Taiwanese Stranded in Hubei Province of China

回顧我國COVID-19 的防疫政策及其效應，湖北滯留臺人包機返國事件，是一個突出但尚未獲得重視的治理矛盾案例。他們是2020 年間，唯一被政府禁止自行返臺的國民或居留證持有者，其公民權益受到防疫治理限制的程度，超越科學防疫的必要性，充滿諸多爭議。這個案例顯示，快速蔓延的新興疫病加速全球性的科學知識共享，各國對於風險的界定與處置卻常表現出不同的建構性和選擇性。即使面臨類似的情境，各國的防疫決策與實作也不見得雷同。因此，探討防疫治理決策及其副作用時，除了思考科學的不確定因素可能造成風險感知差異外，社會文化因素亦值得深思。
在後疫情時代，諸多社會已開始回應因疫情而被區隔、對立、分離的各種衝突傷痛，致力於重建人際連結、社會信任、政治和解、集體療癒。回顧檢視政府決策與作為的影響力，都有助於化解衝突傷痛，並維繫民主社會的透明治理與公平正義原則。本文案例的重建與分析是為了反思造成政策矛盾的社會機制，以避免未來再度出現類似風險歸咎的政策盲點。

The evacuation of Taiwanese citizens who were stranded in Hubei Province, China during the early outbreak of COVID-19 by chartered flights is a glaring yet unappreciated case that illustrates Taiwan’s paradoxical governance of the pandemic in 2020. They were earmarked with the labels of Wuhan and Hubei, and hence became the only categorized group of nationals or residence permit holders who were prohibited by the Taiwanese government from returning to Taiwan on their own in 2020. The extent to which the rights of these citizens were restricted by the COVID-19 governance clearly exceeded the need for science-based epidemic control and has been full of controversy. This case shows that while the rapid spread of the emerging pandemic has accelerated the global sharing of scientific knowledge, the definitions of risk as well as its related policies and practices have exhibited a great variation across countries. Even facing identical challenges, different governments may formulate obviously different health policies to counter the disease. As such, in addition to the uncertainties embedded in scientific knowledge itself that might have caused the divergence in cognition of risk by policy-makers, I would also like to include socio-cultural factors as relevant factors in analyzing such variation.
In the post-pandemic era, many societies have begun to reflect upon the various conflicts and losses caused by quarantine and segregation polices and practices, as well as to engage in rebuilding interpersonal connections, social trust, political reconciliation, and collective healing. Through the case of Taiwanese stranded in Hubei Province of China, this article examines the role of socio-cultural factors in Taiwan’s COVID-19 policy decision-making and its side effects. A retrospective review of the impact of policy decisions and practices can help reveal the social mechanisms that shaped the policy contradictions, hoping to avoid future blind spots in policymaking involving inappropriate risk-assignment and victim-blaming, and to maintain the principles of transparent governance, fairness and justice in a democratic society.