Car sales are well up, outlying islands boomed this year. See many factories under construction as Taishang return to Taiwan. . Traffic is a nightmare on the 1. Some businesses have suffered but overall things are pretty good here, certainly way better than recession years of 2000s and amazing compared to almost anywhere else !
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Fascinating, Captain.
I suspect the correlation boils down to competent governments knowing how to handle both health crises and the economy ā¦ competently. Halfwits do what halfwits do best, ie., make a right pigās ear of absolutely everything.
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Up to May, the returning enterprises brought in one trillion:
The Government is already working in the global restructuring of supply chains.
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In other news:
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There are 3 more new imported cases. More news at 2pm presser.
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Grandpa making a fuss at a quarantine hotel, claiming his grandchild is going hungry? Police on the scene! What was the matter? Well, seems the father and child came back from Korea, and when they wanted to boil water for milk, well, they couldnāt find the plug. Tried to communicate with the hotel and failed, so they called Gramps, who could only hear crying in the background. Grandpa called 1922 insisting he needed to see his family members, they said no way, hence the hotel stand down. Eventually, plug was found, all is well.
And such, folks, are news in Taiwan.
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Thanks. Itās impressive how Taiwan have handled everything so far, while here in the U.K. were on the verge of another lockdown.
Following Icon, hereās a report from Focus Taiwan on these cases:
Guy
And remember those six presumed exported cases to the Philippine? After tracking down their contacts in Taiwan and testing them, the CDC found no positive cases. More details here:
Guy
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Must be more weak positives.
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False positives or infected after leaving Taiwan. Because thereās a large number of Filipinos coming and going so there are always going to be false positives. Anyway that doesnāt mean the tests arenāt functioning correctly, the first round screen is optimised for sensitivity over specificity. As per SOP all positives will be retested.
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One more imported case reported today:
Guy
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Just a wee note here. Our last local transmission was April 12. Thatās, like, a really long time ago (five months, or ten transmission cycles). Iām really not sure why people are wearing masks in the streets. I mean, I know, I know, we gots to be vigilant. But isnāt it a little like wearing a condom to a nightclub? Discuss (without attacking me for being some sort of COVID denier).
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One argument in favour of continued vigilance is that more and more folks are coming and going internationally: students, business people, migrant workers, sailors, diplomats.
The vast majority are following quarantine protocols. But as we know, there are some that donāt. And we know of cases where so-and-soās little nephew is arriving, and wonāt you meet him at the airport and have a coffee, etc (i.e. people with power and connections NOT following SOP).
If wearing masks helps minimize further outbreaks and keeps our streak going, Iām all for it.
Thatās my 
Guy
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This has been on my mind this week. Weāre back in class at university, and at the start of the week over half the students were wearing masks; by the end of the week, less than a quarter. Itās probably ok, but Iām worried about how many students may have gone through quarantines that were less diligent than they should have been.
Requiring masks on the MRT is probably overkill, but Iām happy about it. I dunno, I used to light-heartedly mock my wife for always wearing a mask on the MRT - but I may continue to wear one on trains even when this is done.
Wearing them on the streets, in the open? I donāt do that right now. But I like the current level - if things do get worse, we all should be able to ramp up to higher levels of vigilance pretty easily.
Iām not so sure about the health check āsystemā at my school: every day we need to post online if our temperature is OK or not, or if we have other symptoms. That seems ā¦ sort of pointless.
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One word: China. If they could, we would be overrun by the virus.
Two words: runaways and stowaways. Especially from SEA countries. Runaway workers avoid medical care, could be silent vectors of contagion. Stowaways in ships, for lack of better word for those who take passage and alternative forms of immigration in fishing vessels that smuggle people, guns, drugs and masks, could succeed in coming ashore and slip silently into society with COVID as extra luggage.
Three words: quarantine evaders loose. What if my neighbor decided he had cabin fever? What if the business guy decided to supervise a sales meeting himself, canāt trust his subordinate?
Best example of protection is the Palau Friendship Fleet case. It could have been a disaster. It wasnāt because if any transmission tried to occur, it could not penetrate our containment field, our safety net.
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Influenza rates are way below normal, which is a bonus. But, environmentally, mask use is a disaster.
Do we need them in Taiwan at the moment? No. However, itās probably good to keep people in the habit of wearing them for if/when corona virus gets in again.
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Sometimes I wear my mask because Iām going from a bus to MRT and donāt want to fuss with it. Sometimes I put it on because wearing it around my wrist was annoying me. Sometimes I look at the pollution levels and decide that, while I take a break from N95-wearing while other people need them more than me, a simple mask will be better than nothing.
Thereās also the reality that COVID isnāt the only thing that we need to worry about in this place. People here virtually never wash their hands with soap or cover their mouths/noses when coughing/sneezing. Masks are the only thing stopping all those germs of all kinds from getting you until you have access to a sink. Did you ever notice how rarely kids miss school here? When I was growing up in the US, there was rarely a full class of students every day. Sometimes they were out because their parents could excuse them for no reason, but it was often some sort of a sick day. Masks must be doing something while all other commonsense hygiene gets ignored in this country.
Thereās also the fact that a mask is a minor inconvenience compared to getting COVID. Iād be willing to bet thereās been asymptomatic cases over the past few months that werenāt caught, but mask-wearing prevented it from spreading to anyone else. Remember the KTV hostess? Everyone wore masks and no one else tested positive. Now multiply that across the massive public transit system in this country.
Thereās also a part of me that feels I should wear my mask in enclosed spaces and shops as a courtesy to the people who work there. If weāre still doing the whole āmasks only stop you from spreading the infection to othersā mindset (I think weāve decided thatās not entirely true?), people making NT20,000/month deserve to be respected.
Edit: I have 5 reusable cloth masks that I rotate through. I donāt think itās worth it to waste surgical masks right now. A layer of paper towel in the filter pocket is almost as effective as a surgical mask anyway, according to SmartAirās research, so Iāll that layer if cases do go up. Until then, Iām saving money and dinosaurs by wearing a cloth mask
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Yeah. Surgical masks are horrendously expensive. You should be able to retire on those vast savings.
I am grateful we get to bitch about traffic jams.
Plus things like laptop sales have been high because people are at home. Giant and bike industry is booming because people staying away from gyms
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