Coronavirus - Taiwan 2021

Taiwan Living in Taiwan
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2282

As a teacher, I agree that punishments and outside “orders” only make people want to do the opposite.

I’ve had kids hurt themselves pretty badly immediately after the they decide to do exactly what I told them to stop doing because it was dangerous. And when they hurt themselves, I go over to them and say “and now you know why I told not to do that. Is anything broken? Did you hit your head? Are you bleeding?” And when the answer to all of those question is “no”, I say “ok, take some time to think about why you got hurt” and I walk away and observe them from a far enough distance that they don’t know if I’m watching them or not. I also tell other students to ignore that person. They learn their lesson and they don’t get the attention they were looking for by being dangerous and stupid in the process. Maria Montessori called that “natural consequences” and oh boy are they more effective than yelling at or punishing someone.

However, I’d love to know what could be similar motivation for people in quarantine. If you don’t want to quarantine, you shouldn’t have traveled. Full stop. “If you can’t pay the fine, don’t do the crime” (and if you can’t stay put during quarantine, stay put through the rest of the pandemic). Or, what are the natural consequences of not staying put while in quarantine? Your neighbors get mad at you? Oh no! Angry neighbors! Never seen that in TW! There’s an outbreak that you’re responsible for? Other than being responsible for causing an outbreak, you don’t suffer many consequences— the doctors, nurses, first responders, teachers and caregivers do. The only thing you’ll suffer is public shame, which doesn’t go very far.
As for goodie bags, that wouldn’t motivate me, certainly. The last thing I need is boxes of pineapple cakes and guava and other garbage that people like to pass around as gifts here. Unless they’re giving me premium coffee and high quality chocolate, I probably don’t want it. Maybe if I was provided with a nutritious meal three times a day and dessert that wasn’t made of foam, I’d be motivated. But right now, the people I know who have quarantined in government facilities were given :poop: lunch boxes that were so oily they just didn’t eat for two weeks. And the fear of touching money/ delivery can only be received if you have a credit card goes too far given what we know about how covid spreads. So I can’t say I blame people for wanting to sneak out, but I personally cannot think of anything other than a massive fine or revoking of my APRC as motivation to keep me locked in my apartment for two weeks

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2283

Well, the obvious thing to do would be to ask the people who do break quarantine : “Why did you do that? What on earth were you thinking?”.

The problem with lawmakers is that they think they already know what the problem is and how to fix it.

Now, I’ll be honest: I stayed in quarantine partly because I was afraid of my neighbours. I don’t even speak to them anymore. How fucked-up is that? How is it a good thing to be afraid of the neighbours doing something bad to you? How is it a good thing if the government encourages that mindset? I’ve seen how that pans out in Elbonia. I don’t want to see even a whiff of it coming to Taiwan. It wasn’t a huge factor because I had plenty to occupy myself and a supply of food, and I understand the logic of quarantine. It’s one of the few COVID-19 interventions I actually agree with. But let’s say it was a minor factor.

Imagine I decided “well, bugger it, I’m going out anyway”, and I got caught and fined. What good would that do? I’ve already broken quarantine. The consequences for society are the same (ie., none at all, with a 99.9999% probability) whether I get fined or not.

The goal is to make sure people do not break quarantine. Ever. Can we agree on that?

All you need to do is make sure those “natural consequences” that you mentioned outweigh the benefits of going out. You can do that mainly by alleviating the stress of staying in. And although you said rewards wouldn’t work, you went right ahead and listed out some things that would work for you.

So why not just ask people at the airport: is there anything we can do for you while you’re quarantined? You want coffee? Chocolate? Girls? Just call this number and we’ll sort it out for you. And when you’re done, we’ll give you a NT$10,000 voucher for all your trouble.

Treat people like they’re heading off to a 4-star hotel (which many of them are) instead of being imprisoned against their will. Quarantine is supposed to be a public-safety measure, and according to both the laws and the ethos of Taiwan civil society, it is entirely voluntary. Compliance is an act of selflessness. It is not a punishment for having the temerity to turn up in Taiwan.

For me, the big thing was water. Luckily, I had someone who could bring me drinking water. Not everyone is lucky. The police calling me each day just wanted to get the thing over with. They didn’t actually care whether I was dead or alive. They would have told me to drink the tap water if I’d said I was thirsty.

The crappy lunchbox example is exactly why people break quarantine. The natural human response is to think: if you don’t care about me, why should I care about you?

Punishment should be predicated on an assumption of goodwill on all sides. Start by assuming that people want to follow the rules. Then make it easy for them to do so. When they’re done, send someone round with a sincere thank-you and a cheque. The consequences of breaking quarantine would be (a) instant loss of all government service/support and (b) a modest fine.

There are two principles at work here: one from psychology (reciprocity) and one from game theory (in a game which can be cooperative or adversarial, the optimum strategy is to duplicate your opponent’s moves). I’m pretty sure it would work more reliably than huge fines. The research on that sort of thing is clear: large punishments are no more a deterrent than modest punishments. The only difference is that large punishments create more fallout.

I’m shocked to the core by the gleeful “let’s lock everyone inside and make them suffer!” attitude that’s emerged during this epidemic. It’s not merely irrational, unscientific, and counterproductive, it’s a reversal of 300 years of civilized progress.

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2284

https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/4158907

image !

Taipei’s mayor has promised equal access to vaccines (assuming he has the authority to decide), any other city’s or county’s chimed in on this?

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2285

Minister Chen insists he is dealing with adults and hence won’t approve say ankle bracelets and other stronger measures. Most people voluntarily comply. All have neighbors to help them comply.

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2286

In Australia the statement from the Government is that everyone gets to be Vaccinated irrespective of Nationality or Immigration status. They say that they ‘hope’ that other countries will reciprocate.

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2287

Ankle bracelets are not needed when they have the Mobile Phone ringfencing. Thats why the Home Quarantine works, any movement of more than a few metres from the door can be tracked and they follow up on movements or lack of a signal. Others here in the past have mentioned getting a visit from the Police when they forgot to keep their phone on or the battery ran out and thus the signal disappeared.

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2288

How does one not keep one’s “phone on” or let the battery run out, in quarantine? Sounds like bullshit. Seriously, what are you going to do when you’re waiting for your delicious biandang? Neglect to put the phone on or forget to charge it? I rarely use my phone (would probably use it a lot more if I were locked down) but it’s always on and charged.

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2289

mine like to just walk into my house unannounced.

I wanna move.

2290

Yep. But we have a few escapees who just leave the phone at home. Some get a few miles out, like the flight attendants most recently and quite a few others. That’s when a few extra eyeballs or sheer luck come to play.

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2291

WTF

Nobody should have to roll out the red carpet for whiney ass people who are choosing to travel during a worldwide pandemic…

You fly on a plane coming from a highly infected country, potentially endangering the flight crew, customs officers, airport personnel, quarantine taxi drivers, and society as a whole and you expect to be paid!?!

wow…just wow.
entitlement much?

How about you owe it to society to keep yourself in quarantine, tough it out with oily lunch boxes for a couple weeks as an APOLOGY for inconveniencing so many around you and potentially endangering the entire population.

Someone breaks quarantine, fine the hell out of them.

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2292

See, this is why I think humanity is doomed. All this finger-pointing and “you’re going to kill us all” stuff is just BS. It’s superstition pure and simple. People arriving here test negative on boarding the plane. A negative test of an asymptomatic person in a low-prevalence population is almost guaranteed to be correct. And so it turns out, statistically speaking. But as I’ve mentioned before, scientific facts are of absolutely no relevance to this whole charade.

Once upon a time we all accepted freedom of movement as a human right. Funny how these “rights” disappear as soon as it’s politically expedient.

Anyway, I was talking about what is likely to work. If you’re not interested in what works, and merely enjoy the spectacle of people being fined/punished/needlessly hurt, there’s not much I can say. This is why JP talks about getting in touch with your inner demons (or whatever word he uses). Most people don’t examine their own motivations when calling for lockdowns and fines. Perhaps if they did, they wouldn’t like what they saw.

I’ll also add that people aren’t travelling just for the hell of it. They know what’s involved. They’re doing it because they have extremely good reasons - employment, family, or whatever. Trivialising these important (to them) personal motives is deeply unpleasant. A little understanding and empathy, I think, would go a long way towards making quarantine bearable, and thereby ensuring compliance.

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2293

My motivation for agreeing with fines is to keep our island somewhat covid free as long as we can.

Nothing wrong with being kind, caring, and courteous to those arriving and going into quarantine.

But to expect society to hand you a check for staying in your room is nonsense.

There are consequences to choices. One chooses to come here, then one chooses to face the legal requirements for quarantine.

It is your responsibility to take care of yourself. Know what you are getting into before you travel. Don’t like the food? There are other options.

Over 500,000 dead from Covid in the US alone is not fear mongering. It is reality.

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2294

Then you would understand the value of carrot-and-stick motivations in achieving that goal. The belief that fines (alone) are going to achieve the desired effect is simply wrong. It’s wrong in theory and it’s turning out to be wrong in practice.

Doesn’t mean the government should impose onerous consequences over and above those that are inherent in the procedure, which is what’s happening. Giving people shitty NT$50 bian dangs when they’re paying $1000s for their hotel room is unconscionable. I expected better from Taiwan. Shrugging and saying “too bad” is exactly why people walk out of their rooms/houses. It’s just human nature. If someone says “fuck you”, your natural response is to say, “well, fuck you too, and the horse you rode in on”. Being pointlessly cruel to people achieves the exact opposite of the intended effect.

Why is it? The UK government has handed out hundreds of billions of pounds to compensate people for their ill-advised “lockdowns”.

There are very few travellers coming to Taiwan. A token payment, or water/food deliveries, or whatever, would cost the country nothing, and the payback would be huge.

And as I’ve shown from published research, that’s almost entirely due to American life choices. Sooner or later Taiwan will encounter COVID-19 as a novel virus and they will have to deal with it as such. It will not go away and cannot be avoided indefinitely. Fortunately, the prevalence of metabolic syndrome in Taiwan is very low and the excess death rate - when it hits us - is likely to be close to zero.

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2295

There was a post here some months back from someone who had done Quarantine and mentioned just that - police arrived as no signal from phone - turns out it wasnt attached to the charger and battery had gone down to 0% and it turned itself off.

2296

Actually, people here were being paid to stay in quarantine, not 10k but 14k. They were given packages with goodies. And that was when the situation abroad was not that bad.

People in quarantine still have a direct line to a case worker in case they feel as much as an itch. The cakes and stuff they can get themselves and that is why we have so many delivery services now. Well, except for alcohol but even that can be worked out.

People having to travel has nothing to do with them complying with quarantine here. One does not negate the other.

At least here they do not lock away the sick with the healthy or leave the sick to their own devices. That is what success in control means. The cases were tracked so now anyone sick or suspected can be taken care of. If the system was overwhelmed or worse, if the virus had been treated as a cold, a poor people’s disease or a lie or whatever excuse they may use not to spend the time or money, then we’d be in the same train as many other countries.

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2297

Turns out it’s very correct in theory and it’s working extremely well in practice!

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2298

If you give them a finger, they take an arm!

2299

Soo … nobody’s breaking quarantine, nobody’s dissatisfied with the way things are run, and all’s right with the world. OK.

The quarantine system is a long way from optimal. That’s not my opinion, that’s scientific fact, and I feel reasonably qualified to say that given my academic background. But it doesn’t matter. What actually matters is that the authorities are doing something that the average man in the street believes is optimal, and that involves some public executions - sorry, fines - to entertain everyone. I’ve no doubt there are people on reddit calling for quarantine-breakers to be flayed alive, and not so long ago in history the authorities would have gone along with it.

I’ve resigned myself to the fact that we live in a post-science world. I never thought I’d see this happen in my lifetime, but in retrospect the writing was on the wall. I truly do despair for the future of the human race, and I’m genuinely relieved I won’t be around much longer to see how this plays out.

2300

The normal man in the street should not go on unnecessary travel.

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2301

Do you honestly think people are travelling just to experience the joys of quarantine? Or just to annoy you? Exactly what does “unnecessary” mean? Who do you think you are to decide what’s unnecessary and what isn’t?

It’s absolutely clear from comments like this that there’s a widespread belief that people who travel should be punished. Not merely quarantined for valid medical reasons, but punished for even having the temerity to reclaim their lives. Petty unpleasantness should be inflicted upon them purely for the sake of it. That’s a dangerous slippery slope to start down, IMO.

Have a bit of imagination, man. People are travelling to be with their children, or to see their parents for the last time (before they die of mundane old-people things), or to avoid dropping off an economic cliff. Nobody wants to expose themselves to any more of this bullshit than is absolutely necessary.

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