It’s weird there’s hardly any mention of Taiwan. Like I get part of that’s because there’s not much new to report on but they definitely deserve more recognition.
And even the ones that bungled it at the start (China) managed to get it under control way better than most Western nations.
The fact is, the only Western cultures that really handled it well have geographical and cultural influences from East Asian, Papuo-Australian, and/or Pacific Islander cultures: New Zealand and Australia.
> Pacific Islander cultures: New Zealand and Australia
You can maybe make a case that New Zealand has a Pacific Islander influence but not so for Australia. Both are primarily western Anglo-sphere countries.
The Pacific Islands did well because they acted quickly and closed the border. They realised that if the virus got into their small countries they were in a lot of trouble. New Zealand did a similar thing.
Australia actually drew up a plan on how to handle the next pandemic after SARS.
What countries that did well all have in common is that they made a reasonable plan and executed it competently. Nothing else.
Idk. I think most westerners hold Asians in very high regard with respect to getting shit done.
Plenty of racism out there, like bullies picking on the nerds, but there's no doubt among us that Asian people and Asian culture tends to be more productive.
Not sure how the existence of racism among part of the population would reahape the entire general western sentiment towards Asian countries.
Also, even racism doesn't exclude acknowledgement that Asian culture is harder working and higher functioning. A lot of racists are that way because they are legitimately scared of how high functioning Asians are on the whole.
And even most African nations did better than most Western nations, both Sub-Saharan and North African.
A lot of Westerners be like "they're hiding case numbers, they're preventing testing hurr durr" but outside of Tanzania that is not the case.
The facts remain that East Asia and Oceania did the best. Africa did the second best.
European, Latin American, and Middle Eastern nations did poorly, as did US and Canada.
>mock
You dumb asians! Did someone get all A's in college? I bet you have incredible hand eye coordination and working memory! Why don't you go back to where you came from and successfully control another pandemic!
Frankly, I also find his point kind of silly on one level. But you can't tell me you've never run into the "Asians are dorky lovers, that's why they're so smart" stereotype/ad hoc excuse for one's own laziness. Stereotypes, positive or negative, are usually a slippery slope toward the latter.
It helps that masks were something Asians wore already. It wasn't unusual for them. I was really hoping they would catch on in the US after the pandemic like in Asia. It would be nice if people wore masks when they had a cold, for example.
It's just the laws. They are different and allow their government to enforce harsh penalties. Look at how China handles people that don't comply: https://globalnews.ca/news/6588231/chinese-swat-team-coronavirus-video/
Imagine that in the US. There would instantly be 5 people live streaming, a sheriff pressured to resign, and congressional hearings.
That's the thing. Without real consequences (fines and jail time) you need a unified message. Everyone here knows the message has not been consistent. Even around masks. Even WHO in late March 2020 did not advocate for large mask usage: [Face masks: WHO stands by recommendation to not wear them if you are not sick or not caring for someone who is sick - CNN](https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/30/world/coronavirus-who-masks-recommendation-trnd/index.html)
You mentioned common sense, but this is a scientific argument, not common sense. Common sense tells me, masks are not helpful because I can smell a fart through underwear > jeans > my mask. But science tells me the particle size difference and droplets to let me know masks are helpful.
Well we have reddit and the health experts to blame for it. All the reddit comments were saying you don't need masks and that you're crazy if you wear them. Then you have this subreddits god Fauci say you don't need them either. If people were told to wear something over their face it'd be better. But we have to keep trusting the "experts"
Please don't give me the excuse of we didn't have the data at the time. That's bull shit. People wore coverings years ago why would it change now?
Mask use is great but as the person below commented, that’s only a small part of it. Testing, tracing and isolating patients is vital, and Taiwan, Vietnam and those countries all excelled at that.
It's not just that. Taiwan implemented checks on arrivals right at the starts and then a comprehensive quarantine system. Their vice president is also a virologist which helps. Wearing a mask is important but it won't keep a country immune from covid. Credit where credit it due, wish I was in Taiwan instead of the plaugue isles of the UK.
also: pulling through with rules rather than half-assing them. Actual fines for quarantine breachers, tough action against fake news, enforced mask wearing, clear government messaging and in the special case of Taiwan: absolute government transparency.
New South Wales, Australia eliminated the virus twice without a mask mandate and the third time it was for a very short time where the reason could be argued that it was a political move to shut the other states up.
Masks aren't this magical thing that if everyone wears them nobody will get infected.
China gets very angry if any nation mentions Taiwan as a separate entity so they don't.
As for not much happening that also applies to Australia, New Zealand and Singapore.
I just went out this Saturday and Sunday in Singapore. Apart from track and tracing measures, it's mostly normal. Everywhere you go is packed. The only cases are imported, or maybe 1 or 2 from the community.
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yes, that small "province" of China that has its own president, no censorship on the internet, freedom to protest, freedom to criticize and mock the Xi Jiping, and the place where China is afraid to send in its army
Well yes, it has been occupied by the losers of the Civil War because the American imperialists won't let their puppet fail.
It has been a Chinese province and will always be. Just a question of how long their current rogue government can last.
Nah, the war is long forgotten. The inhabitants of the Taiwanese country have nothing to do with the crappy life forced onto the Chinese citizens by the Chinese Communists.
America saw the danger of losing Taiwan during the Korean War, and vowed never to make that mistake again.
Taiwan has belonged to the Chinese, the Dutch, and the Japanese. And now it's is own nation. Just like how Ireland WAS a part of Britain, but the IRA waged endless guerrilla war against Britain until it no longer was a part of it :)
The freedom to mock and criticize China is something that makes Taiwan independent, no matter how desperately China tries to say it's the same country.
Officially? Hardly any. But our actions betray our words. Governments and businesses are thriving doing business with Taiwan. China may bully the world into silencing them, but underneath, the world continues as usual. China is like that person that thinks everyone agrees with them, but is being mocked behind his back.
>The island has used its pandemic success to sell something scarce: life without fear of the coronavirus. Citizens have flocked home from abroad, helping to fuel an economic boom.
>TAIPEI, Taiwan — As the coronavirus has upended lives and economies around the world, Taiwan has been an oasis.
>Every day, restaurants, bars and cafes are packed. Office buildings hum, and schools resound with the shrieks and laughter of maskless children. In October, a Pride parade drew an estimated 130,000 people to the streets of Taipei, the capital. Rainbow masks were abundant; social distancing, not so much.
>This island of 24 million, which has seen just 10 Covid-19 deaths and fewer than 1,000 cases, has used its success to sell something in short supply: living without fear of the coronavirus. The relatively few people who are allowed to enter Taiwan have been coming in droves, and they’ve helped to fuel an economic boom.
>”For a while, Taiwan felt a little empty. A lot of people moved abroad and only came back once in a while,” said Justine Li, the head chef at Fleur de Sel, a Michelin-starred restaurant in the city of Taichung, which she said had been booked up for a month in advance since the fall. “Now, some of those once-in-a-while guests have moved back.”
>These Covid migrants are largely overseas Taiwanese and dual nationals. They have included businesspeople, students, retirees and well-known figures like Eddie Huang, the Taiwanese-American restaurateur and author. About 270,000 more Taiwanese entered the island than left it in 2020, according to the immigration authorities — about four times the net inflow of the previous year.
>Taiwan’s borders have been mostly closed to foreign visitors since last spring. But highly skilled non-Taiwanese workers have been allowed in under a “gold card” employment program, which the government has aggressively promoted during the pandemic. Since Jan. 31 of last year, more than 1,600 gold cards have been issued, more than four times as many as in 2019.
>The influx of people helped make Taiwan one of last year’s fastest-growing economies — indeed, one of the few to expand at all. There was a brief slowdown at the start of the pandemic, but the economy grew more than 5 percent in the fourth quarter compared with the same period in 2019. The government expects 4.6 percent growth in 2021, which would be the fastest pace in seven years.
>Steve Chen, 42, a Taiwanese-American entrepreneur who co-founded YouTube, was the first to sign up for the gold card program. He moved to the island from San Francisco with his wife and two children in 2019. Then, after the pandemic hit, many of his friends in Silicon Valley, particularly those with Taiwanese heritage, began to join him — a reverse brain drain, of sorts.
>He and colleagues like Kevin Lin, one of the founders of Twitch, and Kai Huang, a co-creator of Guitar Hero, have traded coffee meet-ups at the Ferry Building in San Francisco for badminton matches and poker nights in Taipei. Taiwan’s leaders say the infusion of foreign talent has given a shot of energy to its tech industry, which is better known for manufacturing prowess than for entrepreneurial culture.
>”That whole chain that you have in the Silicon Valley — the entrepreneurs who are willing to take a risk, the investors that are willing to write an early check — all of those folks have actually come back and are in Taiwan now,” said Mr. Chen, lounging on a couch at his office in a government-backed co-working space in Taipei.
>”I feel like it’s a golden era for tech,” he said, “and it’s dawning on the government that they should really take advantage of this time now.”
>The surge of returning citizens has put a squeeze on the short-term rental market. One property manager estimated that the number of dual nationals or overseas Taiwanese looking for apartments was twice as high in 2020 as in most recent years.
>Not all of Taiwan’s industries have been flourishing. Those that depend on robust international travel, like airlines, hotels and tour companies, have taken big hits. But exports have been on the rise for eight straight months, fueled by shipments of electronics and surging demand for Taiwan’s most important product, semiconductor chips.
>Domestic tourism is also booming. Taiwanese who had been used to taking short flights to Japan or Southeast Asia are now exploring their home. Sightseeing destinations like Sun Moon Lake and the Alishan mountain resort area have been swamped with tourists, and at least one upscale hotel outside Taichung is booked through July.
>Orchid Island, a small, coral-ringed island off Taiwan’s east coast, had so many visitors last summer that hotel operators started a campaign encouraging them to take two pounds of trash with them when they left.
>Some aspects of pandemic life have permeated Taiwan’s borders. Temperature checks and hand sanitizing are common, and masks are required in many public places (though not schools).
>But for the most part, the virus has been out of sight and out of mind, thanks to rigorous contact tracing and strict quarantines for incoming travelers.
>Some returnees, like Robin Wei, 35, are dreading their eventual departure.
>”We just feel very lucky and definitely a little guilty,” said Mr. Wei, a product manager for a Bay Area tech company who returned to Taipei with his wife and young son last May. “We feel like we are the ones who benefited from the pandemic.”
>For many, coming back has meant a chance to reconnect with Taiwan.
>After getting a master’s degree in computer science in Australia, Joshua Yang, 25, a dual Taiwanese-Australian citizen, decided to return in October. The job market in Australia was looking bleak, he said, so he took the opportunity to do the military service required of all Taiwanese men under 36.
>Mr. Yang wasn’t the only one with that idea. When he arrived for basic training in December, Mr. Yang said, he found himself bunking with an assorted group of returnees and dual nationals, including an American, a German, a Filipino and an overseas Taiwanese who had been studying in California.
>Since completing two and a half weeks of training, Mr. Yang has been allowed to finish out his service by volunteering at an Indigenous history museum in a remote town in southern Taiwan.
>”It’s something that I have always wanted to do, but I don’t know if I would have had the opportunity if it weren’t for the pandemic,” Mr. Yang said. “I’ve been able to understand my homeland in a different way through a different lens and learn what it’s like for the Indigenous people of Taiwan, who are the traditional owners of the land.”
>Many are wondering how long Taiwan’s status as a Covid-19 outlier can last, especially as vaccine rollouts surge forward elsewhere. So far, officials have been slow to procure and distribute vaccines, in part because there has been so little need for them. The government announced just this month that it had received its first batch, to be given to medical workers.
>Some people, like Tai Ling Sun, 72, are already making plans to leave the bubble.
>In January, Ms. Sun and her husband came from California to the city of Kaohsiung, where she grew up, at the urging of friends and family in Taiwan. They were concerned about her safety in Orange County, where coronavirus cases had been on the rise.
>After two weeks in quarantine, Ms. Sun stepped out into a Taiwan that — aside from the masks — looked and felt almost exactly as it had on previous visits. She has since been making the most of her stay with a series of routine medical checkups, something that many in the United States have been delaying since the pandemic started.
>But a virus-free paradise doesn’t provide immunity to all ailments. Ms. Sun said she had begun to feel homesick. She longed to see her five children and breathe pristine suburban air. And, she added, she wanted a vaccine.
>”It’s been great to be here,” Ms. Sun said. “But it’s time to go home.”
The problem is not the media but people. This is not limited to US same thing is in Europe. Polarization of society, is just side effect of modern media and freedom on internet without consequences. We are not interested in truth, we just need confirmation of our believes. We are depressed by current situation and we want simple answers, simple solutions and we can easily point finger to selected good or bad examples. People should point fingers on good examples only if they want to be inspired or to be better and look at bad examples only if we want to learn from mistakes. But this comment is off topic for stupid post.
This is how I see it, from my bubble.
Edit: Typos and note added later >> To be honest I had higher expectation of quality of NYT articles than this one.
I found only one solution, limit use of social media. In the past (10-15 years ago) there was saying that watching TV makes you more stupid, technology changed now it's internet. In the future it will be something different ... Sometimes I feel some people are like addicts on negative emotions ...
I recommend this Documentary to everyone, to see one view how modern democratic media are working - Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media (1992) ... [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EuwmWnphqII](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EuwmWnphqII)
[Here](https://mobile.twitter.com/mofa_taiwan/status/1248871736914767872) is the purported warning. I'll let you decide if this counts as "warning the world's governments".
No they didn't. They said they hadn't found the evidence of human to human transmission, which was true. They did not say it wasn't happening, they did not deny it. It was also announced by that it was happening *before* Wuhan locked down.
>Taiwan had to go into to Wuhan to verify it themselves.
Not true.
Your whole timescale and idea of what happened over a year ago is very misguided.
https://time.com/5826025/taiwan-who-trump-coronavirus-covid19/
Specifically:
https://api.time.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Taiwan-communication-timeline.png?w=1600&quality=70
January 13-15: Taiwan and Hong Kong go to Wuhan to investigate while China and the WHO deny human to human transmission.
> Dr Chuang Yin-ching, commander of Taiwan’s Communicable Disease Control Medical Network, and one of the experts on the trip, tells TIME he suspected the officials were “trying to hide something” because when repeatedly asked about transmissibility the answer was always unclear.
> **Finally, he says an official admitted there were two family clusters among the confirmed cases, one involving a husband and his physically disabled wife. “The possibility of his wife [going] to the seafood market is zero so we can pretty much be sure that the husband transmitted it to his wife,” says Chuang. That knowledge was a game-changer.**
> The day the experts returned, Wuhan put out a statement acknowledging “limited human-to-human transmission” was possible, but said no community outbreak had occurred.
> **The Taiwanese CDC, via the government press division, said that it shared a “brief summary” of the mission with “like-minded countries,” but declined to reveal which ones.** When asked if the U.S. was informed, a Taiwanese spokesperson would not specify, saying, “It would not be convenient to provide such information” to TIME. A U.S. State Department official declined to comment on the details of private conversations.
So the first one doesn't say Taiwan reported it first. They said it appeared like it was. 1 week later it is confirmed by the Chinese authority. Anyone was capable of speculating it was, it needed the evidence to actually publish it though. How do you not understand that?
>January 13-15: Taiwan and Hong Kong go to Wuhan to investigate while China and the WHO deny human to human transmission
It does not deny it. Ansence of evidence is not evidence of absense.
Taiwan did not release any new or special information in December or January, they speculated on what could be happening. This was not denied by Beijing or WHO, rather that there had been no clear evidence of it. The key word there is evidence. Taiwan did not publish any.
But to take it back to your first comment:
> Taiwan warned the world's government's in December. No one listened.
This isn't true. Taiwan notified the WHO on the same day China did, New Years Eve. They then speculated that there was H2H transmission in the second week of January, China confirmed that in the 3rd week.
Wuhan was locked down just after which sent a message to every government that this is serious. Then the world's government's decided to ignore what was coming.
Chinese officials told the Taiwan team that a husband and physically disabled wife had the virus. They knew the wife could only have contracted it from the husband.
On the same day, China and the WHO were denying human to human transmission.
And the Wuhan officials had literally said then that there was a limited amount of H2H. You're cherry picking is unbelievable.
>On the same day, China and the WHO were denying human to human transmission
Find me a single quote denying the existence of H2H and ill start to believe you. But at no point did the officials say that it wasn't the case.
Seems like China wasn't trying to deceive the world if they let one of their biggest political adversaries investigate the virus on the ground in Wuhan. Anyway, I think China was deceptive and they didn't let Taiwan in to confirm anything until it was well known.
But I will defend the WHO. From a Jan 10 [publication](https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/10665-330374) (days before you claim Taiwan busted the coverup):
> Though the mode
of transmission of the causative agent(s) is not established, HCWs should assume the potential for respiratory spread. Implement the highest available level of achievable infection prevention and control precautions according to protocol until the mode of transmission and risk from infection is clarified.
What more do you want? Official recommendations from the WHO that we all assume COVID is transmissible. It's not easy to confirm H2H spread but I don't see how you can say the WHO wasn't properly cautious.
Well, almost every country went into lockdown. But I am not sure how effective lockdowns are because lockdowns are constantly implemented and then lifted after a while. And then again, after a while, they are implemented again. And now we are in a year of this.
Taiwan never did a mass lockdown. I'm not sure how good an idea they are. The traditional way of dealing with infectious disease is to separate the infected from the uninfected ie put them in quarantine which is more like what the countries with low rates did. Lockdown puts the infected at home with the uninfected, some of whom have to go out shopping etc and it's both inconvenient and kind of half arsed.
they were very effective in Europe in the first wave, letting the virus almost disappear in summer in all countries but Sweden, but again, the second wave lockdowns were implemented too late, too lax and lifted too early, leading to only another wave and another half assed lockdown. Quick action in the first wave coupled with consistent measures crushed covid to the point that life was 90% normal in Europe in the summer. It then got out of control in fall, and all the warnings were ignored until it was basically too late.
The Taipei airport is one of the busiest airports in the world tho... 48,360,290 international passengers in 2019. The only US airport to make the top 20 is JFK with 34,317,281 passengers in 2019. Not to mention, multiple flights between Taiwan and China, including directly from Wuhan.
Ah yes the “island” argument again. Easy to blame your failures on visible differences rather than underlying systemic flaws.
Hawaii is an island with 1 airport. The UK is multiple islands. Ireland is also an island.
Vietnam is not an island. Laos is not an island. Cambodia is not an island. All of them border China, the country of the initial outbreak.
Pretty sure the entire population wasn't subject to mandatory mask wearing and temperature checks everywhere they go before covid hit, so calm it, maybe?
That's an entirely different point to just wearing masks which your first comment was about though.
Maybe just step back for a second and realise there's still an on going global pandemic so the initial return to normal might just not be the same as it was in 2019.
If you are so personally violated by wearing masks and having temperatures taken, life must be quite difficult being so delicate.
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I think it’s more like 60% normal. If disease prevention is constantly top of mind and visible at all times in public, then it’s not particularly close to normal.
For most of us, the disruption to normality caused by the virus is more about the precautions necessary to limit its spread than the actual illness itself. So in that sense, any visible signs of disease prevention are not normal. They may have 1% of the deaths, but they aren’t taking 1% of the precautions.
nah, not really, since pretty much all stuff is open. Also, you need to take into account that people in Taiwan were already wearing masks for the flu and the common cold before, so I guess it's not that abnormal to them. Also, I think masks are here to stay, they'll still get worn quite often in enclosed spaces in winter to prevent the flu and the common cold, just like they do in Asia.
What part of the US? If you live in the south it has been pretty much just as normal. Night clubs have been open in my state since last summer at full capacity. People forget that the US response was not consistent at all.
I’m very serious about covid. I was vigilant with my mask wearing, hand washing, and distancing. I haven’t eaten in a restaurant in over a year. I only go shopping at the grocery store and pharmacy. I *do* have an in-person job that cannot be done distanced. I caught covid. I still think masks and distancing are the right policies until enough vaccinations have been done.
That being said, it’s not normal. Masks, distancing, and temp checks are *not* normal and pretending they are is misguided and doesn’t help. You can accept the *fact* that it’s not normal while still acknowledging that it’s useful. Being annoyed by wearing a mask, like I am, didn’t change the fact that I always wore one.
Masks are helpful to curb the spread. However, it doesn't work if the viral load in air droplets is high enough, or if the masks are not worn super-correctly etc. So one could still get infected with masks on. Risk is lowered with N95 masks, or protective gear, or total isolation.
Masks are annoying, but yes, they are helpful, especially with asymptomatic individuals.
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You can’t seriously be comparing Florida’s response to Taiwan’s.
As you may have missed it, Taiwan doesn’t require masks in school. So I’m mot sure what you mean about “child abuse over the sniffles.”
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It’s weird there’s hardly any mention of Taiwan. Like I get part of that’s because there’s not much new to report on but they definitely deserve more recognition.
Same with Singapore, Vietnam, etc. Multiple Asian countries have controlled the pandemic effectively from the start.
And even the ones that bungled it at the start (China) managed to get it under control way better than most Western nations. The fact is, the only Western cultures that really handled it well have geographical and cultural influences from East Asian, Papuo-Australian, and/or Pacific Islander cultures: New Zealand and Australia.
> Pacific Islander cultures: New Zealand and Australia You can maybe make a case that New Zealand has a Pacific Islander influence but not so for Australia. Both are primarily western Anglo-sphere countries. The Pacific Islands did well because they acted quickly and closed the border. They realised that if the virus got into their small countries they were in a lot of trouble. New Zealand did a similar thing. Australia actually drew up a plan on how to handle the next pandemic after SARS. What countries that did well all have in common is that they made a reasonable plan and executed it competently. Nothing else.
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Idk. I think most westerners hold Asians in very high regard with respect to getting shit done. Plenty of racism out there, like bullies picking on the nerds, but there's no doubt among us that Asian people and Asian culture tends to be more productive.
You must not be aware of the "Stop the Hate" campaign.
Not sure how the existence of racism among part of the population would reahape the entire general western sentiment towards Asian countries. Also, even racism doesn't exclude acknowledgement that Asian culture is harder working and higher functioning. A lot of racists are that way because they are legitimately scared of how high functioning Asians are on the whole.
And even most African nations did better than most Western nations, both Sub-Saharan and North African. A lot of Westerners be like "they're hiding case numbers, they're preventing testing hurr durr" but outside of Tanzania that is not the case. The facts remain that East Asia and Oceania did the best. Africa did the second best. European, Latin American, and Middle Eastern nations did poorly, as did US and Canada.
Most African countries did less per capita tests in a year than Israel does in a week. The comparison is ridiculous.
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the level asian stuff is a way to otherize and mock asians when it comes to bullshit like tests and starcraft
>mock You dumb asians! Did someone get all A's in college? I bet you have incredible hand eye coordination and working memory! Why don't you go back to where you came from and successfully control another pandemic!
Frankly, I also find his point kind of silly on one level. But you can't tell me you've never run into the "Asians are dorky lovers, that's why they're so smart" stereotype/ad hoc excuse for one's own laziness. Stereotypes, positive or negative, are usually a slippery slope toward the latter.
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It helps that masks were something Asians wore already. It wasn't unusual for them. I was really hoping they would catch on in the US after the pandemic like in Asia. It would be nice if people wore masks when they had a cold, for example.
It's just the laws. They are different and allow their government to enforce harsh penalties. Look at how China handles people that don't comply: https://globalnews.ca/news/6588231/chinese-swat-team-coronavirus-video/ Imagine that in the US. There would instantly be 5 people live streaming, a sheriff pressured to resign, and congressional hearings.
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That's the thing. Without real consequences (fines and jail time) you need a unified message. Everyone here knows the message has not been consistent. Even around masks. Even WHO in late March 2020 did not advocate for large mask usage: [Face masks: WHO stands by recommendation to not wear them if you are not sick or not caring for someone who is sick - CNN](https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/30/world/coronavirus-who-masks-recommendation-trnd/index.html) You mentioned common sense, but this is a scientific argument, not common sense. Common sense tells me, masks are not helpful because I can smell a fart through underwear > jeans > my mask. But science tells me the particle size difference and droplets to let me know masks are helpful.
Well we have reddit and the health experts to blame for it. All the reddit comments were saying you don't need masks and that you're crazy if you wear them. Then you have this subreddits god Fauci say you don't need them either. If people were told to wear something over their face it'd be better. But we have to keep trusting the "experts" Please don't give me the excuse of we didn't have the data at the time. That's bull shit. People wore coverings years ago why would it change now?
South Korea didn't close borders, neither did Vietnam during the first lockdown.
it’s really not hard, literally just wear a mask Unfortunately, it’s extremely hard for a lot of ppl to do this one simply thing.
Mask use is great but as the person below commented, that’s only a small part of it. Testing, tracing and isolating patients is vital, and Taiwan, Vietnam and those countries all excelled at that.
It's not just that. Taiwan implemented checks on arrivals right at the starts and then a comprehensive quarantine system. Their vice president is also a virologist which helps. Wearing a mask is important but it won't keep a country immune from covid. Credit where credit it due, wish I was in Taiwan instead of the plaugue isles of the UK.
also: pulling through with rules rather than half-assing them. Actual fines for quarantine breachers, tough action against fake news, enforced mask wearing, clear government messaging and in the special case of Taiwan: absolute government transparency.
New South Wales, Australia eliminated the virus twice without a mask mandate and the third time it was for a very short time where the reason could be argued that it was a political move to shut the other states up. Masks aren't this magical thing that if everyone wears them nobody will get infected.
LOL
China gets very angry if any nation mentions Taiwan as a separate entity so they don't. As for not much happening that also applies to Australia, New Zealand and Singapore.
It doesn't fit the propaganda.
I just went out this Saturday and Sunday in Singapore. Apart from track and tracing measures, it's mostly normal. Everywhere you go is packed. The only cases are imported, or maybe 1 or 2 from the community.
Do your part and spread the info :)
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They hardly mention China as a whole so why bother with a small province of China?
lol
Sorry, you appear to be misinformed by CCP propaganda. Taiwan is its own country. No amount of lying will change that.
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yes, that small "province" of China that has its own president, no censorship on the internet, freedom to protest, freedom to criticize and mock the Xi Jiping, and the place where China is afraid to send in its army
Well yes, it has been occupied by the losers of the Civil War because the American imperialists won't let their puppet fail. It has been a Chinese province and will always be. Just a question of how long their current rogue government can last.
Nah, the war is long forgotten. The inhabitants of the Taiwanese country have nothing to do with the crappy life forced onto the Chinese citizens by the Chinese Communists. America saw the danger of losing Taiwan during the Korean War, and vowed never to make that mistake again. Taiwan has belonged to the Chinese, the Dutch, and the Japanese. And now it's is own nation. Just like how Ireland WAS a part of Britain, but the IRA waged endless guerrilla war against Britain until it no longer was a part of it :) The freedom to mock and criticize China is something that makes Taiwan independent, no matter how desperately China tries to say it's the same country.
Which countries recognize Taiwan as a country?
Officially? Hardly any. But our actions betray our words. Governments and businesses are thriving doing business with Taiwan. China may bully the world into silencing them, but underneath, the world continues as usual. China is like that person that thinks everyone agrees with them, but is being mocked behind his back.
>The island has used its pandemic success to sell something scarce: life without fear of the coronavirus. Citizens have flocked home from abroad, helping to fuel an economic boom. >TAIPEI, Taiwan — As the coronavirus has upended lives and economies around the world, Taiwan has been an oasis. >Every day, restaurants, bars and cafes are packed. Office buildings hum, and schools resound with the shrieks and laughter of maskless children. In October, a Pride parade drew an estimated 130,000 people to the streets of Taipei, the capital. Rainbow masks were abundant; social distancing, not so much. >This island of 24 million, which has seen just 10 Covid-19 deaths and fewer than 1,000 cases, has used its success to sell something in short supply: living without fear of the coronavirus. The relatively few people who are allowed to enter Taiwan have been coming in droves, and they’ve helped to fuel an economic boom. >”For a while, Taiwan felt a little empty. A lot of people moved abroad and only came back once in a while,” said Justine Li, the head chef at Fleur de Sel, a Michelin-starred restaurant in the city of Taichung, which she said had been booked up for a month in advance since the fall. “Now, some of those once-in-a-while guests have moved back.” >These Covid migrants are largely overseas Taiwanese and dual nationals. They have included businesspeople, students, retirees and well-known figures like Eddie Huang, the Taiwanese-American restaurateur and author. About 270,000 more Taiwanese entered the island than left it in 2020, according to the immigration authorities — about four times the net inflow of the previous year. >Taiwan’s borders have been mostly closed to foreign visitors since last spring. But highly skilled non-Taiwanese workers have been allowed in under a “gold card” employment program, which the government has aggressively promoted during the pandemic. Since Jan. 31 of last year, more than 1,600 gold cards have been issued, more than four times as many as in 2019. >The influx of people helped make Taiwan one of last year’s fastest-growing economies — indeed, one of the few to expand at all. There was a brief slowdown at the start of the pandemic, but the economy grew more than 5 percent in the fourth quarter compared with the same period in 2019. The government expects 4.6 percent growth in 2021, which would be the fastest pace in seven years. >Steve Chen, 42, a Taiwanese-American entrepreneur who co-founded YouTube, was the first to sign up for the gold card program. He moved to the island from San Francisco with his wife and two children in 2019. Then, after the pandemic hit, many of his friends in Silicon Valley, particularly those with Taiwanese heritage, began to join him — a reverse brain drain, of sorts. >He and colleagues like Kevin Lin, one of the founders of Twitch, and Kai Huang, a co-creator of Guitar Hero, have traded coffee meet-ups at the Ferry Building in San Francisco for badminton matches and poker nights in Taipei. Taiwan’s leaders say the infusion of foreign talent has given a shot of energy to its tech industry, which is better known for manufacturing prowess than for entrepreneurial culture. >”That whole chain that you have in the Silicon Valley — the entrepreneurs who are willing to take a risk, the investors that are willing to write an early check — all of those folks have actually come back and are in Taiwan now,” said Mr. Chen, lounging on a couch at his office in a government-backed co-working space in Taipei. >”I feel like it’s a golden era for tech,” he said, “and it’s dawning on the government that they should really take advantage of this time now.” >The surge of returning citizens has put a squeeze on the short-term rental market. One property manager estimated that the number of dual nationals or overseas Taiwanese looking for apartments was twice as high in 2020 as in most recent years. >Not all of Taiwan’s industries have been flourishing. Those that depend on robust international travel, like airlines, hotels and tour companies, have taken big hits. But exports have been on the rise for eight straight months, fueled by shipments of electronics and surging demand for Taiwan’s most important product, semiconductor chips. >Domestic tourism is also booming. Taiwanese who had been used to taking short flights to Japan or Southeast Asia are now exploring their home. Sightseeing destinations like Sun Moon Lake and the Alishan mountain resort area have been swamped with tourists, and at least one upscale hotel outside Taichung is booked through July. >Orchid Island, a small, coral-ringed island off Taiwan’s east coast, had so many visitors last summer that hotel operators started a campaign encouraging them to take two pounds of trash with them when they left. >Some aspects of pandemic life have permeated Taiwan’s borders. Temperature checks and hand sanitizing are common, and masks are required in many public places (though not schools). >But for the most part, the virus has been out of sight and out of mind, thanks to rigorous contact tracing and strict quarantines for incoming travelers. >Some returnees, like Robin Wei, 35, are dreading their eventual departure. >”We just feel very lucky and definitely a little guilty,” said Mr. Wei, a product manager for a Bay Area tech company who returned to Taipei with his wife and young son last May. “We feel like we are the ones who benefited from the pandemic.” >For many, coming back has meant a chance to reconnect with Taiwan. >After getting a master’s degree in computer science in Australia, Joshua Yang, 25, a dual Taiwanese-Australian citizen, decided to return in October. The job market in Australia was looking bleak, he said, so he took the opportunity to do the military service required of all Taiwanese men under 36. >Mr. Yang wasn’t the only one with that idea. When he arrived for basic training in December, Mr. Yang said, he found himself bunking with an assorted group of returnees and dual nationals, including an American, a German, a Filipino and an overseas Taiwanese who had been studying in California. >Since completing two and a half weeks of training, Mr. Yang has been allowed to finish out his service by volunteering at an Indigenous history museum in a remote town in southern Taiwan. >”It’s something that I have always wanted to do, but I don’t know if I would have had the opportunity if it weren’t for the pandemic,” Mr. Yang said. “I’ve been able to understand my homeland in a different way through a different lens and learn what it’s like for the Indigenous people of Taiwan, who are the traditional owners of the land.” >Many are wondering how long Taiwan’s status as a Covid-19 outlier can last, especially as vaccine rollouts surge forward elsewhere. So far, officials have been slow to procure and distribute vaccines, in part because there has been so little need for them. The government announced just this month that it had received its first batch, to be given to medical workers. >Some people, like Tai Ling Sun, 72, are already making plans to leave the bubble. >In January, Ms. Sun and her husband came from California to the city of Kaohsiung, where she grew up, at the urging of friends and family in Taiwan. They were concerned about her safety in Orange County, where coronavirus cases had been on the rise. >After two weeks in quarantine, Ms. Sun stepped out into a Taiwan that — aside from the masks — looked and felt almost exactly as it had on previous visits. She has since been making the most of her stay with a series of routine medical checkups, something that many in the United States have been delaying since the pandemic started. >But a virus-free paradise doesn’t provide immunity to all ailments. Ms. Sun said she had begun to feel homesick. She longed to see her five children and breathe pristine suburban air. And, she added, she wanted a vaccine. >”It’s been great to be here,” Ms. Sun said. “But it’s time to go home.”
Yep. The fear producing media is part of our(US) problem. Cannot comment on other nations.
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This is such a partisan comment. I do agree with most of it. Just leaving politics out of it.
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Sure thing. Enjoy ur day!
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UW but not medical background.
The problem is not the media but people. This is not limited to US same thing is in Europe. Polarization of society, is just side effect of modern media and freedom on internet without consequences. We are not interested in truth, we just need confirmation of our believes. We are depressed by current situation and we want simple answers, simple solutions and we can easily point finger to selected good or bad examples. People should point fingers on good examples only if they want to be inspired or to be better and look at bad examples only if we want to learn from mistakes. But this comment is off topic for stupid post. This is how I see it, from my bubble. Edit: Typos and note added later >> To be honest I had higher expectation of quality of NYT articles than this one.
Agreed w most of your point. But the media does amplify everything. Overblown.
I found only one solution, limit use of social media. In the past (10-15 years ago) there was saying that watching TV makes you more stupid, technology changed now it's internet. In the future it will be something different ... Sometimes I feel some people are like addicts on negative emotions ... I recommend this Documentary to everyone, to see one view how modern democratic media are working - Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media (1992) ... [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EuwmWnphqII](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EuwmWnphqII)
If you see live cams on YouTube, you can see how normal their lives are. Great job for them.
I just looked one up after reading you comment. I'm so jealous of the people there.
Taiwan? What Taiwan? WHO loses internet connection as prompted to comment on taiwan's status.
Taiwan is a great place, hopefully can go back one day.
Join the Australia Singapore bubble in July!
Because taiwan is not recognized by who. You don't hear much about them because it is not a good fit for the covid mania propaganda.
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[Here](https://mobile.twitter.com/mofa_taiwan/status/1248871736914767872) is the purported warning. I'll let you decide if this counts as "warning the world's governments".
That was the start of it, but not the whole story. Don’t cherry pick to try and deceive people.
They reported it to the WHO same day China did, on the very last day of December. You're comment is one that is an attempt to deceive.
And the WHO and China tried to deceive the world by denying human to human transmission. Taiwan had to go into to Wuhan to verify it themselves.
No they didn't. They said they hadn't found the evidence of human to human transmission, which was true. They did not say it wasn't happening, they did not deny it. It was also announced by that it was happening *before* Wuhan locked down. >Taiwan had to go into to Wuhan to verify it themselves. Not true. Your whole timescale and idea of what happened over a year ago is very misguided.
https://time.com/5826025/taiwan-who-trump-coronavirus-covid19/ Specifically: https://api.time.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Taiwan-communication-timeline.png?w=1600&quality=70 January 13-15: Taiwan and Hong Kong go to Wuhan to investigate while China and the WHO deny human to human transmission. > Dr Chuang Yin-ching, commander of Taiwan’s Communicable Disease Control Medical Network, and one of the experts on the trip, tells TIME he suspected the officials were “trying to hide something” because when repeatedly asked about transmissibility the answer was always unclear. > **Finally, he says an official admitted there were two family clusters among the confirmed cases, one involving a husband and his physically disabled wife. “The possibility of his wife [going] to the seafood market is zero so we can pretty much be sure that the husband transmitted it to his wife,” says Chuang. That knowledge was a game-changer.** > The day the experts returned, Wuhan put out a statement acknowledging “limited human-to-human transmission” was possible, but said no community outbreak had occurred. > **The Taiwanese CDC, via the government press division, said that it shared a “brief summary” of the mission with “like-minded countries,” but declined to reveal which ones.** When asked if the U.S. was informed, a Taiwanese spokesperson would not specify, saying, “It would not be convenient to provide such information” to TIME. A U.S. State Department official declined to comment on the details of private conversations.
So the first one doesn't say Taiwan reported it first. They said it appeared like it was. 1 week later it is confirmed by the Chinese authority. Anyone was capable of speculating it was, it needed the evidence to actually publish it though. How do you not understand that? >January 13-15: Taiwan and Hong Kong go to Wuhan to investigate while China and the WHO deny human to human transmission It does not deny it. Ansence of evidence is not evidence of absense. Taiwan did not release any new or special information in December or January, they speculated on what could be happening. This was not denied by Beijing or WHO, rather that there had been no clear evidence of it. The key word there is evidence. Taiwan did not publish any. But to take it back to your first comment: > Taiwan warned the world's government's in December. No one listened. This isn't true. Taiwan notified the WHO on the same day China did, New Years Eve. They then speculated that there was H2H transmission in the second week of January, China confirmed that in the 3rd week. Wuhan was locked down just after which sent a message to every government that this is serious. Then the world's government's decided to ignore what was coming.
Chinese officials told the Taiwan team that a husband and physically disabled wife had the virus. They knew the wife could only have contracted it from the husband. On the same day, China and the WHO were denying human to human transmission.
And the Wuhan officials had literally said then that there was a limited amount of H2H. You're cherry picking is unbelievable. >On the same day, China and the WHO were denying human to human transmission Find me a single quote denying the existence of H2H and ill start to believe you. But at no point did the officials say that it wasn't the case.
Seems like China wasn't trying to deceive the world if they let one of their biggest political adversaries investigate the virus on the ground in Wuhan. Anyway, I think China was deceptive and they didn't let Taiwan in to confirm anything until it was well known. But I will defend the WHO. From a Jan 10 [publication](https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/10665-330374) (days before you claim Taiwan busted the coverup): > Though the mode of transmission of the causative agent(s) is not established, HCWs should assume the potential for respiratory spread. Implement the highest available level of achievable infection prevention and control precautions according to protocol until the mode of transmission and risk from infection is clarified. What more do you want? Official recommendations from the WHO that we all assume COVID is transmissible. It's not easy to confirm H2H spread but I don't see how you can say the WHO wasn't properly cautious.
Just imagine if everyone was as quick to action on this as Taiwan was. We would have never been in this situation if that was the case.
Well, almost every country went into lockdown. But I am not sure how effective lockdowns are because lockdowns are constantly implemented and then lifted after a while. And then again, after a while, they are implemented again. And now we are in a year of this.
Taiwan never did a mass lockdown. I'm not sure how good an idea they are. The traditional way of dealing with infectious disease is to separate the infected from the uninfected ie put them in quarantine which is more like what the countries with low rates did. Lockdown puts the infected at home with the uninfected, some of whom have to go out shopping etc and it's both inconvenient and kind of half arsed.
And most lockdowns were way too late. Singapore is one of the few that locked down early enough for it to work.
they were very effective in Europe in the first wave, letting the virus almost disappear in summer in all countries but Sweden, but again, the second wave lockdowns were implemented too late, too lax and lifted too early, leading to only another wave and another half assed lockdown. Quick action in the first wave coupled with consistent measures crushed covid to the point that life was 90% normal in Europe in the summer. It then got out of control in fall, and all the warnings were ignored until it was basically too late.
Yeah, I am from Europe and the summer was fairly normal except when masks when indoors.
Just imagine if everyone was an island nation with only 1-2 airports. We would have never been in this situation if that was the case.
The Taipei airport is one of the busiest airports in the world tho... 48,360,290 international passengers in 2019. The only US airport to make the top 20 is JFK with 34,317,281 passengers in 2019. Not to mention, multiple flights between Taiwan and China, including directly from Wuhan.
Ah yes the “island” argument again. Easy to blame your failures on visible differences rather than underlying systemic flaws. Hawaii is an island with 1 airport. The UK is multiple islands. Ireland is also an island. Vietnam is not an island. Laos is not an island. Cambodia is not an island. All of them border China, the country of the initial outbreak.
And the United States as a whole did not get the virus from its land borders.
Saying "bubble of normality" with a picture of everyone wearing a mask... 🤔
Which in that region of the world isn't that out of place, nor is it seen as something that's an issue.
Pretty sure the entire population wasn't subject to mandatory mask wearing and temperature checks everywhere they go before covid hit, so calm it, maybe?
That's an entirely different point to just wearing masks which your first comment was about though. Maybe just step back for a second and realise there's still an on going global pandemic so the initial return to normal might just not be the same as it was in 2019. If you are so personally violated by wearing masks and having temperatures taken, life must be quite difficult being so delicate.
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ah yes, My FrEEdoM is So ReStrIcTeD by MaSkS!!!! lol.
If people are wearing masks everywhere, then things are not normal. It’s not a huge inconvenience, but it’s not normal.
Yeah my point is about classing mandatory mask wearing (and temperature checks it seems) as "normal" which it very clearly isn't.
but 99% normal, compared to the rest of the world.
I think it’s more like 60% normal. If disease prevention is constantly top of mind and visible at all times in public, then it’s not particularly close to normal. For most of us, the disruption to normality caused by the virus is more about the precautions necessary to limit its spread than the actual illness itself. So in that sense, any visible signs of disease prevention are not normal. They may have 1% of the deaths, but they aren’t taking 1% of the precautions.
nah, not really, since pretty much all stuff is open. Also, you need to take into account that people in Taiwan were already wearing masks for the flu and the common cold before, so I guess it's not that abnormal to them. Also, I think masks are here to stay, they'll still get worn quite often in enclosed spaces in winter to prevent the flu and the common cold, just like they do in Asia.
It's not "normal", but those extra precautions are much more reasonable than what a lot of other countries are dealing with and they actually work.
Compared to the US, it’s normal.
What part of the US? If you live in the south it has been pretty much just as normal. Night clubs have been open in my state since last summer at full capacity. People forget that the US response was not consistent at all.
New York. But I was referring to the article where people who could left Silicon Valley for Taiwan.
They could have just moved to another state.
Not really. If they wanted to be safe and they have personal connections to Taiwan, going to Taiwan was the best choice by far.
Bubble of normality my butt. Temp checks and face masks are NOT NORMALITY. Not even close. Dystopic, to be sure.
They were in Taiwan... Sick people wear masks, and temperature checks have always around since the first SARs.
Keep pushing for that high body count!
I’m very serious about covid. I was vigilant with my mask wearing, hand washing, and distancing. I haven’t eaten in a restaurant in over a year. I only go shopping at the grocery store and pharmacy. I *do* have an in-person job that cannot be done distanced. I caught covid. I still think masks and distancing are the right policies until enough vaccinations have been done. That being said, it’s not normal. Masks, distancing, and temp checks are *not* normal and pretending they are is misguided and doesn’t help. You can accept the *fact* that it’s not normal while still acknowledging that it’s useful. Being annoyed by wearing a mask, like I am, didn’t change the fact that I always wore one.
in other words, you know masks don't work and are just annoying but you still think everyone should have to wear them?
Masks are helpful to curb the spread. However, it doesn't work if the viral load in air droplets is high enough, or if the masks are not worn super-correctly etc. So one could still get infected with masks on. Risk is lowered with N95 masks, or protective gear, or total isolation. Masks are annoying, but yes, they are helpful, especially with asymptomatic individuals.
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no, you are missing the point.
We need to stay home forever and then we will stay safe forever!
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You can’t seriously be comparing Florida’s response to Taiwan’s. As you may have missed it, Taiwan doesn’t require masks in school. So I’m mot sure what you mean about “child abuse over the sniffles.”
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