Reducing quarantine to 7 days for those fully vaccinated - see Taiwan to trial 7-day quarantine for those vaccinated in May | Taiwan News | 2021/04/26
Is there any official information about this? I cannot find any as yet.
No information yet. We tried calling the office for more information, and they said to wait for official announcements. Probably will be delayed with the recent cluster outbreak.
How do we know what random people on the street are thinking and what their circumstances are? I have absolutely zero respect for the average personâs âjudgementâ. In fact, I canât think of a single situation where not wearing a mask is justifiable.
I canât see why wearing a mask on the street is necessary. Covid doesnât really transmit well in airy areas outside. In buildings and subways, sure itâs a good idea just in case.
That was my point. Somewhere, you have to draw a line between âpossibly helpful, so letâs just wear a mask on the offchance that it is helpfulâ, and âmost likely pointless, so no needâ. Dogma, IMO, is unjustified.
Why not just wear the fucking mask anyway? How is it hurting you to do so?
I was agreeing with you. Sorry I should have made it clear
Yes, I understood. Maybe my response wasnât clear 
Because you have to draw the line somewhere. Not doing something on the basis that itâs almost certainly pointless is not irrational. By your reasoning, youâre arguing that we might as well pray to the sun god tree times a day because, hey, it couldnât hurt.
Incidentally, I find wearing a mask on the street all but impossible. Iâm really short-sighted and it makes my glasses steam up. I canât see where Iâm going. Thus the chances of my accidentally stepping on a small child outweigh the chances of my transmitting COVID, which I almost certainly donât have.
Ridiculous analogy. Mask-wearing has been proven to limit transmission. With so many asymptomatics wandering around, why not just wear them? Itâs a pretty simple procedure: put the mask on, just in case. Youâre not going to burn in eternal flames for doing so. Hey, you may even prevent one of those stupid old people from dying a premature death!
Youâve just proven (perhaps inadvertently) why you canât trust peopleâs âjudgementâ, which puts me in a logical quandary âŚ
It is not a ridiculous analogy.
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The science of transmission is pretty well-understood at this point: there must be close(ish) contact and prolonged exposure (minutes). If someone is infected and shedding viruses, walking past another person while breathing (even maskless) is almost guaranteed to result in no transmission. Conversely, wearing a mask on the MRT, or in a store, might be reasonable - because you linger. A fraction-of-a-second encounter in the street does not put anybody at risk.
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Mask-wearing only âlimits transmissionâ if transmission is actually a possibility. Since most people are COVID-free, that possibility doesnât even exist in 99.995% of encounters. It also limits transmission in one direction only (âoutwardsâ), so old people who donât want to âprotectâ themselves are making a completely rational decision. Theyâre not stupid.
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Arguing âjust in caseâ when youâre talking about risk probabilities that are close to zero puts you in superstition territory. You can argue for all sorts of possibly-effective prophylactics on the same basis. Hence my sun-god analogy. How many just-in-cases should we indulge in?
The big problem with aiming for zero COVID is that, instead of an epidemic of COVID, you end up with an epidemic of paranoia. Youâre a smart guy and Iâm genuinely surprised that you buy into the idea that ânot wearing a mask will kill your grannyâ ⌠an idea which led directly to those heartbreaking pictures of people embracing their old folk with a plastic barrier between them. Itâs superstition. But you can get people to believe almost anything if you make them afraid.
You yourself seem to be absolutely bloody terrified of death, jimi. Have you considered religion? 
I actually find it quite amusing that itâs possible to treat superstition with a different superstition. Itâs like spiritual homeopathy, which would probably have given James Randi (whereever he is now) a serious case of apoplexy.
Taiwan really has done a remarkable job hasnât it. Itâs more than just we realized what needed to be done first. The execution was impeccable as well.
I canât disagree. Apart from a few oddities - such as allowing air crew to wander around - their decisions have been consistently sensible. Theyâve managed to walk that fine line between infringement of personal liberty and epidemiological effectiveness. Itâs just frustrating to watch the utter shitshow that other countries are indulging in, while they continue to ignore Taiwanâs very existence.
I donât wear a mask walking on the street but will if thereâs a crowd. I always wear a mask in a store, and I donât wear them in my house or car.
Over in Elbonia, it was common to see people driving scooters all masked up, but with no helmet
Sounds pretty unconstitutional to me in not allowing citizens to return without major fines or jail time. Australia did manage to curb covid spread but using techniques that would make a dictatorship junta blush.
Why are you all walking on the street anyways? You got something against sidewalks? 
Taiwan, especially in major cities, is crowded. Walking alone down a road nobody is on is one thing. Take the mask off. But walking down a road where people pass each other within a foot or twoâŚmask up.
I donât see how it would be difficult to provide quarantine facilities for them. As you said, they have a legal obligation to allow the return of citizens unless there is no other possible solution.
No, because itâs not going to happen.
You live in Taiwan. Have you not noticed that people here are superstitious and give random item auspicious reverence.