The COVID-19 pandemic has been dragging on for more than a year now. Here in Taiwan
the they have done a very good job at keeping the number of COVID-19 case numbers low
until the second week of May 2021 when the numbers began to jump from 1 new case every few days to 21, then to 25, then to 85, then 169, and now we are in the 200-400 range for new cases a day that lead Taiwan into being under a level 3 warning.
Currently the level 3 warning will last until June 14th, but will it end by then? We don’t know. Because if the numbers remain the same, they will either extend the level 3, or escalate to level 4 which is a lockdown. Unlike the USA, UK, and Canada which as more than 50% of their population vaccinated with at least one dose, Taiwan has only 1% vaccinated.
The travel restrictions are still in place here in Taiwan and abroad. For us Foreign teachers working in the public school system, I think that it is unfair for us to have our contracts end in July and begin in mid-August because we don’t have enough time to spend with our kin folks in our respective homelands. There’s no explanation needed about that fact that if we go to our home countries, we have to make time for 14 days (17 in Canada) to quarantine, and 14 days back here in Taiwan. If you are vaccinated they will shorten it to 7 days.
The issue is, the contracts for us foreign teachers in the public schools need to be re-written. How should they re-write the contracts? Well it’s simple, all they have to do is end out contracts on June 30th, scrap all English camps for summer and winter, and give us more vacation time for summer and Lunar New Year. (Normally most foreign teachers don’t go home in the Lunar New Year like I did in January 2020 before the pandemic hit us in February 2020). Perhaps they would figure that we still won’t have any time to do 14-day quarantine in our home countries and here in Taiwan during the Lunar New Year. Therefore, I think it would be a very good idea that they should be fair to at least scrap all summer camps, and end our contracts on June 30th. Because in the summertime there will be more time for us to go to our home countries to see our kin during the summer if they let our contracts end on June 30th, that way after leaving Taiwan on July 1st, we could spend 14 days in quarantine in our home countries, and by July 15th (July 18th in Canada) we will be free until it’s time to come back here for the following school year. That way we could have more time to quarantine in August before the school year starts at the end of August.
This is how it should be at this present time, because the pandemic is still dragging on. Taiwan has only 1% vaccinated and Taiwan may not end this for a while after the new academic year begins.