SNA (Taipei) — Taiwan’s pandemic success is faltering, but the Health Ministry’s spokesdog can do no wrong.

Zongchai, a Shiba Inu who is the face of the Health Ministry’s social media, has whipped up a large following with her entreaties to the public to wash their hands, keep calm, and observe social distancing–by giving the distances in dog lengths.

Up until mid-May, Taiwan had recorded just over a thousand Covid cases and just twelve deaths. But it has gone from winning international praise for its control of the coronavirus to battling an outbreak that has seen cases soar to more than 12,000 in the past month.

In response, Japan donated 1.24 million of its AstraZeneca vaccine to Taiwan, which has struggled to get its hands on enough shots for its 23.5 million people.

Authorities have asked people to stay at home as much as possible without resorting to a lockdown, and again turned to Zongchai for help.

“You ask what are Zongchai’s weekend plans?” the Health Ministry asked in a post last month. “Basically staying at home,” it said, with Zongchai shown several times spread out on the floor asleep.

That weekend’s near-empty streets, parks, and Taipei Metro suggested she was more successful than many health officials the world over.

The next weekend, a glasses-wearing Zongchai with a microphone recommended a list of karaoke songs to sing at home. All the songs were around a theme of loneliness–A Lifetime of Loneliness, Lonely Ballet, Who Will You Think of When You’re Alone?– to remind people to text or call their friends and family “as it is easy to feel down.”

“The (Health Ministry) does a good job of cutting through the noise and standing out on social media,” said Kathy Cheng, a Taipei-based creative consultant who goes by the handle Tricky Taipei. “A lot of the success of the messaging is thanks to the Zongchai mascot who’s effective at getting people to pay attention, just like a real dog.”

The Health Ministry’s social media manager based Zongchai on his own Shiba Inu, who has at times been pictured in the flesh with Health Minister Chen Shih-chung. The minister last year attained heroic status among the public for his daily press conferences and handling of the pandemic.

Since Zongchai made her debut in February last year, followers of the Ministry of Health and Welfare’s (MOHW) Facebook page have grown from 150,000 to more than 1.3 million. While the main reason is that people are seeking information during the pandemic, it is also partly down to their social media marketing, says the person who created Zongchai.

The social media manager asked not to be identified because of an agreement with his supervisor, and because he didn’t want to take attention away from Zongchai.

He said the tie-wearing canine mascot made it easier for people to recognize official information from the Health Ministry. “They can be sure it is not false messaging,” he said.

Chen, the health minister, and his team regularly debunk Covid-related disinformation, which appears to have increased since Taiwan started struggling with rising cases.

The social media manager said he knew he would have to post a lot of information during the pandemic, and wanted to make it “readable” for children and adults.

He was also mindful of the need to avoid infringing on other people’s copyright and inadvertently getting the Health Ministry sued.

“Because Zongchai is my baby dog, I don’t need to worry about the problem of copyright disputes and I can do my work more efficiently,” he said. “And the most important reason is I don’t want people to feel worried or uneasy… Mental health is also important during the pandemic.”

Zongchai is not the only dog used by Taiwan government departments to communicate with the public, although she is by far the most famous. Some departments and political parties have decided that bringing out their own Line stickers and creating cartoon characters are an effective way of getting their messages across. A post last week by the Taipei city government advising people that they could only shop on certain days as part of anti-Covid measures featured the deputy mayor and an ID card with the face of a fluffy white dog.

“Government organizations in Taiwan frequently incorporate mascots, like the Formosan black bear mascot used by the Tourism Bureau,” said Cheng. “Sometimes there’s a reliance on ‘cuteness’ to get the message out.”

Zongchai’s name is a play on the Chinese word for CEO–which is pronounced the same way but with a different second character in its written form.

Her name was originally just “Shiba,” but after a netizen suggested the name in a reply to her very first post, the Health Ministry ran with it.

At times, she goes multilingual to explain home quarantine rules, putting out information in English, Indonesian, Vietnamese and dog language (woof! woof! woof! woof! interspersed with “wear a mask,” “wash hands with soap” and “if symptoms appear immediately call” a hotline). She also has her own range of Line stickers.

At one point, Taiwan went eight months without a single local Covid transmission–a record that ended in December when a New Zealand airline pilot infected a Taiwanese woman. The incident foreshadowed the current, most serious outbreak Taiwan has grappled with: it was sparked by infections among pilots who only had to quarantine for three days.

While Taiwan’s current case total of 12,921 and 437 deaths are still low compared to those of Japan and other countries, they are a huge blow to public morale, and have led to brief panic buying in supermarkets.

Cheng said there had been a shift in the Health Ministry’s messaging after the virus started spreading among the population.

Before, their posts “leaned more heavily on Zongchai to remind people to watch out and be aware of risks, but now the social media messaging has become more serious since people need to know about daily numbers and changes to policies and guidelines.”

Zongchai is still at work, though, reminding people to stay at home where possible, wear masks, and maintain social distancing.

“I hope cute Zongchai can make everyone comfortable and calm by sharing her messages,” said her creator.

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