Vietnam definitely does not have this problem.
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I found out tonight that a teacher friend of mine in Taipei is in bed sick with an apparent cold and slight fever. He canât really smell anything either, because his nose is blocked, and some of his kids live in Taoyuan.
Itâs probably just a cold of course, but I was nonetheless quite surprised that the doctor he saw hadnât seen fit to test him and just prescribed him the usual useless antibiotics etc. I wonder how many other patients like this doctors here encounter, and how many are acceptable before genuine cases start slipping through the cracks without more widespread testing.
I was also taking the train back from Taitung to Taipei today, and again a bit surprised by the number of passengers not wearing masks (some of them were eating, but not all - at one point, a slight majority of the people I could see werenât wearing them, and the train conductor didnât seem to care about this either when she eventually passed by. I did manage to get one old bat to eventually put hers on by on-and-off glaring at her for 30 min).
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Did he register a fever when he went to the doctor? Did he ask to be tested for Covid?
He said heâd been to his regular family doctor or whatever at a clinic, and she was wearing a load of PPE and asked him a lot of questions about whether heâd been to Taoyuan recently etc., but ultimately he wasnât tested.
I guess Iâd just expect a higher level of cautiousness and willingness to do tests at the moment in the presence of marginal symptoms, which I think youâd agree with from your other posts.
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Yeah. Seems like your friend is somebody who should be tested. He has a bunch of symptoms that overlap with Covid and even has a connection to people in Taoyuan. I donât really see what the downside to testing him would be. 
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Itâs hearsay at this point, not sure how anybody serious would be able to comment on this case with this kind of information. Let doctors and healthcare professional do their jobsâŚ
Yes. Letâs not question doctors who give out antibiotics for suspected colds.
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The cynical answer would be an aversion to risking losing the ability to claim no local transmission day after day.
Again, Iâm not seriously worried that he has it, but I am a bit concerned about how many cases like this might be occurring and slipping through the cracks without more widespread testing.
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I personally donât think thereâs a conspiracy to hide cases. I just think that a lot of the doctors here are lazy and incompetent. See: prescribing antibiotics for a suspected cold.
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Agreed. 
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Taiwanâs approach is very targeted⌠Nevertheless it isnt a small undertaking either Letâs see which one which control the outbreaks. Iâm betting both can do it.
Study ranks New Zealand Covid-19 response best, Brazil worst, US in bottom five (france24.com)
Seems both are on top of class list. Nations in the Americas for the part make the bottom of the list.
Why doesnât Taiwan make everyone take a covid test after quarantine.
They require one 72 hours before arriving.
But ideally should require one after quarantine rather than relying on self reporting.
They think it would overwhelm the system. The smarter move would be to have a mandatory 3 week quarantine.
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Imagine the amount of escapeesâŚ
Huh? Taiwanâs approach with the hospital cluster wasnât the way it was because it was âtargetedâ. Thousands of people who were deemed to be a risk were retroactively told to quarantine days and in some cases over a week after they were potentially exposed. Many of them were left confused and unable to reach the authorities because the call center was overwhelmed.
Taiwan has handled the pandemic very, very well, but this wasnât its finest moment. Even Steph Curry has days where his 3-point shot is off. Nothing wrong with being honest about it.
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The problem was that they never expected it to get out, and when it did they werenât ready. Last year they should have created a contact tracing app and had it already installed on every willing personâs phone, so that when this happened they had a better shot at knowing who was exposed. We could have also vaccinated all the over 80s by now if we had started vaccinating when other rich countries did.
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I mean afterwardsâŚItâs all about contact tracing and of course quarantining folks from the hospital. Before thatâŚYeah a mess.
Healthcare workers urgently need to be vaccinated especially in those SARS hospitals. Thatâs to protect them and limit transmission risk.