Skimming the news feed these days is like watching the world burn while Taiwan is still a relatively safe haven where my daily routine has only slightly been inconvenienced. Taiwan has done a great job in slowing the spread of the CCP virus (Chinese Communist Party virus, i.e., the Winnie-the-Pooh* Wuhan Panda virus) and keeping the public safe and informed. It has been efficient and effective in implementing well-reasoned measures that has kept people calm and brought out civic-mindedness that by my measure is already at a pretty high level in society.
First off, Taiwan was extremely quick out of the gate at first hearing of a fast-spreading disease in Wuhan, China. Experts were sent to assess the situation and flights from Wuhan were immediately thermally screened for people with fever or signs of illness. That was being done by the end of December because the current Taiwan government is uniquely tuned into when the CCP is covering something up; whereas much of the world is willing to follow CCP propaganda (hopefully that will change now). At each point in escalation, Taiwan ramped up protective measures. Taiwan already had an emergency response system set up as a result of the SARS epidemic in 2003 which also started in China, and activated it giving us a centralized command post to specifically deal with it. Another unique feature about Taiwan is that the government was able to coordinate the immigration bureau and the national health system to identify who was returning to the country and using the health system. If they had come from China, and increasingly other hot spots, they were checked out.
Taiwan has also been impressive in identifying the sources of who was getting infected and quarantining the people who had been in contact and sending out warnings to people in places where there may have been exposure. For example, an Australian musician had come to Taiwan to perform and after he left he tested positive for the CCP virus. Taiwan traced his flight into the country and sent warnings to the passengers in his immediate vicinity on the flight, quarantined the local musicians and workers who had close contact with him for the concert, sent warnings to people with tickets in the front rows, they determined he had not taken public transportation at anytime and his local driver was identified and quarantined. All of this without scaring the shit out of people and causing a panic. Mind you, I'm just recalling what I read from a news article and not stating it as fact since I can't verify it with multiple sources.
Currently Taiwan still has less than 200 cases, each numbered and most sources identified and whether different contractions were related. Last week I noticed in the news that almost all the new cases were being imported and the next day the government closed the borders to foreigners and ordered all returnees to be quarantined for 14 days. And the quarantines are no joke, at least two people who flouted the quarantine displaying zero regard for the public's health were slapped with the maximum fine of US$33,000. Lesser fines have been levied upon quarantine breakers whose threat was not as egregious. One suspected quarantine breaker was found to have mistakenly given the wrong contact information, but was not fined because the hotel staff where he was staying vouched that he had not left his room. The authorities are being reasonable.
Most recently, the government rejected calls for general testing and responded that our situation didn't warrant it and might even be detrimental because of the high possibility for "false negatives". In South Korea and some places in the U.S. it was done because of how fast it had spread and because it had already reached the level of "community spread". The danger of false negatives was shown in the cruise ships where everyone was tested before the virus manifested, so there were people who tested negative and thought they were clear, but then it turned out they had it and possibly had contributed to spreading it. I'm only guessing here, but it seems our politicians are listening to medical experts and science.
I've been going about my days with heightened diligence as a matter of being civic-minded, but otherwise little is different. There are less people at the libraries which is great, and I get my temperature taken every time I go. At times I notice there are fewer products at the hypermart due to sporadic runs on certain items, but the shelves haven't been cleared since there was a run on toilet paper early on when an advertising agency announced that toilet paper material was being diverted for face masks. The government stepped in and stated toilet paper and face masks were made of different materials and there was no danger of a national toilet paper shortage, and they slapped the agency with a fine for misinformation. It still took several weeks to re-stock and a purchase limit has been imposed. I would have been shit out of luck if toilet paper was made out of alcohol.
I don't wear a mask mostly because it just seems such an inconvenience to buy them. I can always tell when a national health-affiliated pharmacy has them in stock because of the long lines out the door. I ride my bike to get around and the places I eat aren't in high volume areas where there's more chance of spread. I did eat once near Taipei Main Station, still a high volume area relatively, and they took my temperature and sprayed my hands with disinfectant; expected and reasonable precaution. On the streets, probably more than half of people I observe wear masks, but not everyone. On the few times I've taken a bus, 99% wore masks (I was the 1%).
I'm not being cavalier about it, thinking I'm not going to get it. I'm balancing my low-impact lifestyle as a low-impact soul with reasonable actual likelihood that I have it at any given moment and am pre-symptomatic. No one can be 0% positive, but I'm pretty low. Little to no interaction with people, mindful of surface areas I touch (I do carry a bandana and otherwise don't push buttons with my fingertips which are more likely to come in contact with my face), and "social distancing" can be the title of my fucking book! Although the actual title might be, "Yo! Keep the fuck away from me". And that has nothing to do with the CCP virus. I think the highest likelihood of me and transmission is exchanging money.
If I do feel cold symptoms, I'm pretty much screwed. I might consider it a too high a risk to go out, maybe even for food, and of course I have zero social support. I suppose I could use a bandana for a mask, maybe wear gloves although I wouldn't want to advertise that I was unwell, and only go out to get food at nearby convenient stores using my cashless payment card (called "yo-yo card" in Taiwan) so that nothing I touch is touched by someone else.
First off, Taiwan was extremely quick out of the gate at first hearing of a fast-spreading disease in Wuhan, China. Experts were sent to assess the situation and flights from Wuhan were immediately thermally screened for people with fever or signs of illness. That was being done by the end of December because the current Taiwan government is uniquely tuned into when the CCP is covering something up; whereas much of the world is willing to follow CCP propaganda (hopefully that will change now). At each point in escalation, Taiwan ramped up protective measures. Taiwan already had an emergency response system set up as a result of the SARS epidemic in 2003 which also started in China, and activated it giving us a centralized command post to specifically deal with it. Another unique feature about Taiwan is that the government was able to coordinate the immigration bureau and the national health system to identify who was returning to the country and using the health system. If they had come from China, and increasingly other hot spots, they were checked out.
Taiwan has also been impressive in identifying the sources of who was getting infected and quarantining the people who had been in contact and sending out warnings to people in places where there may have been exposure. For example, an Australian musician had come to Taiwan to perform and after he left he tested positive for the CCP virus. Taiwan traced his flight into the country and sent warnings to the passengers in his immediate vicinity on the flight, quarantined the local musicians and workers who had close contact with him for the concert, sent warnings to people with tickets in the front rows, they determined he had not taken public transportation at anytime and his local driver was identified and quarantined. All of this without scaring the shit out of people and causing a panic. Mind you, I'm just recalling what I read from a news article and not stating it as fact since I can't verify it with multiple sources.
Currently Taiwan still has less than 200 cases, each numbered and most sources identified and whether different contractions were related. Last week I noticed in the news that almost all the new cases were being imported and the next day the government closed the borders to foreigners and ordered all returnees to be quarantined for 14 days. And the quarantines are no joke, at least two people who flouted the quarantine displaying zero regard for the public's health were slapped with the maximum fine of US$33,000. Lesser fines have been levied upon quarantine breakers whose threat was not as egregious. One suspected quarantine breaker was found to have mistakenly given the wrong contact information, but was not fined because the hotel staff where he was staying vouched that he had not left his room. The authorities are being reasonable.
Most recently, the government rejected calls for general testing and responded that our situation didn't warrant it and might even be detrimental because of the high possibility for "false negatives". In South Korea and some places in the U.S. it was done because of how fast it had spread and because it had already reached the level of "community spread". The danger of false negatives was shown in the cruise ships where everyone was tested before the virus manifested, so there were people who tested negative and thought they were clear, but then it turned out they had it and possibly had contributed to spreading it. I'm only guessing here, but it seems our politicians are listening to medical experts and science.
I've been going about my days with heightened diligence as a matter of being civic-minded, but otherwise little is different. There are less people at the libraries which is great, and I get my temperature taken every time I go. At times I notice there are fewer products at the hypermart due to sporadic runs on certain items, but the shelves haven't been cleared since there was a run on toilet paper early on when an advertising agency announced that toilet paper material was being diverted for face masks. The government stepped in and stated toilet paper and face masks were made of different materials and there was no danger of a national toilet paper shortage, and they slapped the agency with a fine for misinformation. It still took several weeks to re-stock and a purchase limit has been imposed. I would have been shit out of luck if toilet paper was made out of alcohol.
I don't wear a mask mostly because it just seems such an inconvenience to buy them. I can always tell when a national health-affiliated pharmacy has them in stock because of the long lines out the door. I ride my bike to get around and the places I eat aren't in high volume areas where there's more chance of spread. I did eat once near Taipei Main Station, still a high volume area relatively, and they took my temperature and sprayed my hands with disinfectant; expected and reasonable precaution. On the streets, probably more than half of people I observe wear masks, but not everyone. On the few times I've taken a bus, 99% wore masks (I was the 1%).
I'm not being cavalier about it, thinking I'm not going to get it. I'm balancing my low-impact lifestyle as a low-impact soul with reasonable actual likelihood that I have it at any given moment and am pre-symptomatic. No one can be 0% positive, but I'm pretty low. Little to no interaction with people, mindful of surface areas I touch (I do carry a bandana and otherwise don't push buttons with my fingertips which are more likely to come in contact with my face), and "social distancing" can be the title of my fucking book! Although the actual title might be, "Yo! Keep the fuck away from me". And that has nothing to do with the CCP virus. I think the highest likelihood of me and transmission is exchanging money.
If I do feel cold symptoms, I'm pretty much screwed. I might consider it a too high a risk to go out, maybe even for food, and of course I have zero social support. I suppose I could use a bandana for a mask, maybe wear gloves although I wouldn't want to advertise that I was unwell, and only go out to get food at nearby convenient stores using my cashless payment card (called "yo-yo card" in Taiwan) so that nothing I touch is touched by someone else.
* CCP Chairman Xi Jinping has been likened to Winnie-the-Pooh which has led to a ban of the cartoon bear's image in China, believe it or not.
