You can disagree all you like, but that is how they’ve been allowed to operate for the last year or so. They’ve handed out rules as if they have the force of Law, and people - including officials - have complied with them as such. Su has never, ever said: the CECC recommend we do XYZ, so let’s do XYZ. Or alternatively: the CECC have recommended ABC, but taking all things into consideration, that seems like a bad plan so we’re not going to do that. Instead, he has allowed the members of the CECC in person to tell people what to do. That was unconscionable (and quite possibly unlawful).
Yes. I want them brought to account for the harm that they have done in a court of Law. And I want a solemn undertaking from the government that this travesty will NEVER happen again. If they’re allowed to just sweep it all under the rug and walk away whistling, then it will happen again.
Another big problem is that the number of anti-vaxxer MD’s in Taiwan is vanishingly small so attempting to replace pro-vaxxer public health officials with anti-vaxxers would require reaching into the ranks of self-taught medical experts.
“Increasingly, the government just wants to move on. Everything’s about, ‘We must live with Covid now,’” said Jo House, an advocate in the U.K. “There isn’t that same sense of urgency, which I think is tragic given the vast number of people who are ill with this.”
The politicization of the pandemic — not just a problem in the United States — has made it harder to act, advocates have said. The suggestions that Covid-19 still poses a significant risk because of long-term symptoms is not popular, especially for governments trying to steer through a faltering global economy or cater to an electorate that is weary of more than two years of warnings about the virus.
It looks like the problem isn’t that governments are using the prospect of Long Covid to call for further controls but rather that governments want to put Covid in the rear view mirror as soon as possible.
You might be interested in this little segment from Bret Weinstein. It’s a pretty good discussion of the latest US CDC rules, which are about as close as you can get to an admission that the vaccines don’t work and probably never did:
The video is set to the correct time.
It seems to me that this puts you in an ever-shrinking group of “self-taught medical experts” who are convinced that the vaccines are a miracle of modern science despite official admissions that they have little or no practical value.
For the rest of us, this modest adjustment on the CDC website is huge. As they discuss in the video, the primary harm that was done was the harm done to people’s heads. Families, friends and colleagues were set against each other over some ultimately-meaningless ideological issue.
The point of the above post is not to discuss whether vaccines are effective. The US CDC have been pretty clear in their statement: they do not work. And we/they knew that all along. Or at least anyone with a basic grasp of math and statistics and the motivation to look at the numbers knew that. The debate on that matter is over.
The point of the video - it’s only a 10-minute segment if you would care to watch it - is that unelected officials have been allowed to play far too long in the sandbox of government while handing out barefaced lies, and the result of allowing them to do that was a loss of social cohesion and a loss of faith in government. Do you think you or I would be arguing like this if these people hadn’t spent two years shovelling horseshit on our heads? Do we get an apology from them? No, it’s just a shrug and a quiet website edit.
Of course Taiwan’s CDC is still busy shovelling the same horseshit. I guess it’s lucky them that most Taiwanese people don’t read English.
Oh FFS, not that one again. I ran a survey the other day and we got about 30 respondents who had had COVID. One or two of them might have had long COVID because they clicked on the option that encompassed lasting effects, although we didn’t get any elucidation on that. That’s a long way off 30%. I know precisely nobody who has had “long COVID”.
Given the rate of vaccine injury, there’s no way of knowing how many of the people who claim “long COVID” symptoms - and I’m sure there are plenty of genuine ones - are suffering side-effects of vaccination. I don’t think anyone has bothered to control for that, or indeed for any other factors - it’s just assumed a priori that anything bad that happens to anyone must be caused by COVID.
What I mean to say is that we here in Taiwan are not dependent on mass tourism. At least not incoming. Outgoing is another story.
And I do believe that criminally understaffing airports, schools, retail, food, hospitals and other key services, especially transportation, by not protecting the workers, then complaining because they have been crippled and can’t work, nor won’t work for the same or less peanuts after being literally thrown under the bus, is more problematic. In spite of how “normal” things may seem.
I’ll take the masks/quarantine in exchange for not trampling the service industry. It did not come out unscathed but at least there is a measure of momentum.
For people that have discussed ad nauseam how undeveloped Taiwan’s tourism is…sigh.
It’s Taiwan, not Thailand. Nor Mexico nor Caribbean shores that had to open to anti vaxxers and remove all restrictions because they were desperate for dollars…and paid back in lives.
Back to Taiwan. Remember the tourism crisis started when China decided to play heavy.
In 2019, they quote 5% of GDP.
According to the World Travel & Tourism Council’s estimates, the total travel and tourism contribution (including indirect and induced contributions) as percentage of GDP in Taiwan was 4.3% in 2017, far less than Macao’s 61.3%, Thailand’s 21.2%, Hong Kong’s 16.7%, China’s 11%, or Japan’s 6.8%. Taiwan is less dependent on tourism so its economy is therefore more resilient against a sudden decline of foreign tourists.
Though this figure means nothing to those affected. However, again, just like when the Chinese left, Japanese and Korean helped balance. Though they spend less, it is more widely spread.
And since they also had their own restrictions and use masks, they will not hold grudges.
As a matter of fact, they have webpages filled with “we miss Taiwan” themes. Taiwan tourism fairs are widely popular. My money would be Betti g a slow but steady recovery…
Quite opposite to the moment group tours are sold again to go to Japan or Europe. It’ll be trampling stampede at Taoyuan.
Please tell that to the two families, close friends of mine who had very successful tourist based companies pre Covid, that had to leave this past year.
Anti vaxxers and the removal of all restrictions did not cost lives (once zero Covid no longer applied). If you think they did then a logical explanation would be appreciated, because that might make continuing to restrict travel in and out of Taiwan somehow logical.
A friend had a million investment plus foreign investors coming in. All gone.
Most affected are tour guides, the ones that were guiding groups of Taiwanese abroad based on commission. Zero income. That’s my ex roomie and classmates.
Blame the plague. For two years, no one was traveling.
Currently, most people are cash strapped and wary. Hopefully, things will get better, but it won’t be fast.
Anti vaxxers have spread the plague where it wasn’t. I can tell you that from the bottom of our Central and South American hearts.
Again: travel is restricted in order not to overwhelm the medical systems. Now it is opening slowly, building capacity. So we won’t have the mess international airports abroad are experiencing. Weren’t you guys complaining about the mess and waiting lines at Taoyuan?
Taiwan is not external tourist dependent for survival. But it needs stability to survive. Rampant plague, medical systems overwhelmed, thousands dead and we’ll be in China’s lap. It is a matter of national security.
And no, the “it’s a cold” won’t fly when the slight soft opening preview got hundreds dead per day. Yes, even when they were old and sick. It’s societal order here. And that’s the way it is.
