It’s not a warning, it a practice simulation to prepare the people responsible for making sure all the Level 4 precautions and restrictions are carried out properly.
The US is a huge country with 50 different states. Population is over 10x bigger. Land mass is over 273x bigger.
CA is currently at 2.4 cases per 100,000 people. Positive test rate is 0.9%. CA has done more tests in the past week than TW has done in the entire pandemic. 56% of the population has received 1 dose of vaccine, over 40% are fully vaxxed. If you exclude poor, rural areas (inland), the vaccination rates are even higher.
CA is opening up, TW is locking down.
As someone who just left TW and is now in CA, it’s obvious things have changed now that TW’s firewall has failed. CA (and much of the US) is in a much better place than TW.
Fact is there is a lot of unknowns the virus still attacking the world
We don’t know how it’s going to be exactly for Taiwan
But I kept my cool when I lost my job and didn’t know how things will go
Supermarkets were cleaned out of of all things toilet paper
Wife and I kept sane with daily walks and net flix
We hunkered down she cooked and we kept expenses real low
We didn’t know how things were gonna go
The govt upped unemployment checks
Which really helped ends meet
It was tough mentally but we kept our cool and wife and I and cats kept sane
Then I went back to work and worried about exposure and I lost my insurance due to being jobless
We faced ruin if wife or me had to be hospitalized in the USA
Wife’s whole family in Indonesia came down with the virus etc etc al
We suffered more than I will let on
But we are on the mend
If the 525s can do it Taiwan can do it
I have many family and friends in Taiwan
So what happens there is of great importance to me
I can’t compare by state, but the odds of a random person getting covid in the US are still higher than a random person in Taiwan even when factoring for the percentage of people vaccinated. That doesn’t factor for Taiwanese fear and lack of movement against America’s opening up and loosening social distancing laws. It also doesn’t factor for herd immunity, an unknown, or vaccine effectiveness. I think Taiwan still comes out ahead. This week.
The gap is closing. It’s really dropping fast in the US.
I wish I had a crystal ball to be able to confirm what you say. Not 100% sure that vaccine will fix this. Look at what is happening in Washington state now.
And look at the county level data. In the SF Bay Area (where I am), cases per 100K are under 2. SF County had 26 cases yesterday. San Mateo 14. Santa Clara 31. This is nothing, and these 3 counties alone did more tests yesterday than all of TW yesterday.
I don’t think this is hard to grasp? Vaccines work and cases, hospitalizations and deaths have plummeted in CA. Things are getting back to normal and on June 15, a ton of the restrictions will be going away.
TW is sufferings its first outbreak. Cases are rising, hospitals are filling up, non-essential businesses have been ordered to close or operate under major restrictions. There’s talk and worry about Level 4 lockdowns. The govt is scrambling for vaccine. Testing is backlogged.
With you everything is obvious, that is the problem. Take data from NYT, that I linked above, it’s not obvious.
Using this dataset, which is a reliable source, Taiwan would still be below all the US states.
With margin of error, number of case is equivalent between TW and CA, it is why you are able to find divergent datasets. Other states are much worse, there are 30 above 6 cases/100000.
Vaccine did the work reducing the cases, but it is too early to tell if it works long term.
I don’t deny this, but realize that it is a super careful approach and we are nowhere near the numbers of the USA peak.
But right now, from the looks at what is happening at NTU hospital, it doesn’t look so good. Pediatric ICU converted to COVID facility. The director of the hospital has said they need help.