I’d guess they’re going to monitor new arrivals closely in the next few weeks. Those four Indonesians will have them very worried. As the NZ second wave proved it only takes one person and suddenly you’ve got a cluster of 60. Which would cause absolute panic on the streets and a lockdown for weeks to come.
1 Like
Off the top of my head some ideas:
- No foreign language students. Sucks, but they don’t need to be here.
- More testing requirements, perhaps based on country of origin. Reconsider bringing back mandatory tests on arrival for all passengers from certain countries?
- Stricter quarantine requirements and bigger fines for violations. Deal with non-quarantine hotels hosting quarantine guests, close the Airbnb loophole outside of Taipei, etc.
- In light of people testing positive after quarantine ends, extend the quarantine period for people from high-risk countries?
1 Like
Government invited me with a scholarship, I would think language students on scholarship have just as much right to be in Taiwan as people entering under MOFA guidelines:
job-seekers
missionaries
working holiday individuals
volunteers
interns
To what extent does a scholarship student have less reason to be in Taiwan in contrast to the aforementioned who are already permitted to apply for entry into the country?
4 Likes
If they decide to be more strict about who can enter, maybe they’d make an exception for people who have received a scholarship. But you can see from other past threads that enrolling in a language program has been of interest to people looking for an easy way to come to Taiwan or stay if they’re currently here as a tourist. So sort of a backdoor for entry to Taiwan.
Not sure that new job seekers, volunteers, working holiday people, etc. should be a priority for entry now either.
I guess it depends on the volume of people and where they’re coming from. The more people coming from countries where the virus is out of control, the higher the risk that a case will slip through eventually. All it takes is one person to mess things up.
3 Likes
People have commented earlier that it’s not possible to change from a visitor visa to language study visa without leaving the county, so the latter point is of lesser concern.
How did that work out in Europe?
2 Likes
That’s the issue though - tourists could use it like a visa run. Go to another country and apply for the student visa there. And since most of the countries where they could go to apply have virus issues, they’d be a risk coming back. Much better to let people already here convert and fill the language schools up that way.
Could work with Taiwan and Palau since Palau also has 0 local cases and is so tiny. This would be more of a favor to Palau, which is heavily dependent on tourism and one of the few countries that officially recognizes Taiwan. But seems like travel bubbles with Australia, NZ, Vietnam, etc. aren’t likely anytime soon.
They didnt establish ‘bubbles’ in Europe, they merely threw the doors open and said ‘go for it’. The sudden opening of bars and beach resorts in Spain etc was too much for many, and we now see the results.
3 Likes
Bubbles need the relative countries to agree on how and what etc. NZ and AU have started one yesterday, but only half - in that NZ can travel to parts of AU, but not the reverse (no doubt that will change after the NZ election today). There has been mention in Australia recently of arrangements being discussed with Singapore, Japan and Taiwan. It would have to work along the likes of Direct Flights only, at least 14 days in the originating country first and so on.
Edit - there was a report somewhere yesterday that Singapore and Hong Kong had agreed on a bubble.
I just arrived here with my family from the USA on a work visa. Before a visa was issued they required a complete hospital Heath check at an American hospital. Can’t fake it because the embassy has to call and notarize the health exam paper and the actual doctor. It costs $1500 USD for the exam because it required blood work and a chest exam. The embassy also required confirmed tickets and quarantine hotel booking. So for a family of 4 you can guess how much money I spent up to that point. I also had to provide negative covid test 72 hours before boarding the flight for my entire family. They are available in the states but they price gouge you because well USA. $300 a piece with guaranteed results within 3 days. Every airline including transfer asked to see the negative covid test. Some passengers were denied boarding.
As you can see coming from the USA isn’t easy and isn’t cheap. I also felt we were “checked out” health wise pretty thoroughly. Remember we had the 14 day quarantine AND 7 days of required face masks and avoiding public transportation beyond that.
3 Likes
Welcome to Taiwan. Sorry to hear about the crazy health checks. Covid test I get and I expensive no matter where you need it at this point. The good news is that you made it and now life can go back to “normal” Enjoy!
1 Like
Too bad you live in the US, my health exam many years ago had even more requirements and were maybe like 150 US$. Had a friend translate it into Mandarin and had it stamped by the TECO.
Damn communists and their socialized medicine! 
3 Likes
Just randomly came across this study from Taipei Veterans General Hospital and thought it was worth sharing:
Methods
Residual specimens from laboratory blood tests for outpatient and emergency department patients visiting a medical centre in Taipei, Taiwan, within one week in May and another in July, 2020, were collected. We used Elecsys Anti-SARS-CoV-2 Assay to screen and further validated cases with high cutoff index by a confirmatory ELISA assay. We also analysed antibody responses against SARS-CoV-2 along disease progression in four nucleic acid test confirmed COVID-19 patients.
Findings
Blood samples from a total of 14,765 patients were tested. The unweighted seroprevalence of anti-SARS-CoV-2 antibodies was 0.07% [95% CI, 0.04%-0.13%]; after weighting with the population demographics of Taiwan, the estimated overall seroprevalence was 0.05% [95% CI, 0.02%-0.10%]. Furthermore, based on data of the four COVID-19 cases, the seroconversion dates for IgM were as early as 9 days and that for IgG 11 days after symptoms onset.
Interpretation
We screened the anti-SARS-CoV-2 antibodies in a small-scale population-based study and observed an approximately 0.05% seroprevalence of COVID-19, indicating that the current containment protocols emphasising mask wearing, hand washing, social distancing and mandatory quarantine for all incomers are effective in Taiwan.
10 Likes
I went to 101 on Saturday. I was surprised how many people I saw without masks. I guess they want to try en encourage people to continue with them.
Under 30s were maybe 80% with masks and middle age were maybe 90% oldies maybe 50% had a mask on.
I know those numbers aren’t the majority but it stood out because last time I went it was almost 100% mask usage.
1 Like
The general sense I get now is that outside enforcement zones (example: Taipei’s MRT system) mask wearing and social distancing have been for many folks chucked out the window.
Guy
4 Likes
Agree. I expect that will change soon.
Yeah, I’m in the heart of Taipei and mask wearing is at best 50% in most places. The bigger problem is that there’s no social distancing in places where masks aren’t frequently worn. Restaurants, cafes and bars are packed with no social distancing and obviously, you can’t wear a mask 100% of the time in those environments.
This is why the border and quarantine controls are so important. If somebody with the virus breaks quarantine and goes out, we’re a lot more vulnerable today than we were earlier in the year when restaurants, cafes and bars weren’t so packed and social distancing was a thing.
5 Likes
It is very strange how the older people are the less likely they are to wear a mask. Assuming the border controls fail and there is an outbreak they will be most at risk (in actuality the only group at risk other than statistical outliers). I’m beginning to wonder why so much effort and expense is being put into protecting them at the long term expense of everyone else when they don’t appear to give a fuck.
4 Likes
That’s just old people in Taiwan being old people in Taiwan.
I’ve seen old codgers in Taipei trying to cross Roosevelt Road in Taipei against the light, wading through six lanes of traffic plus speeding buses in the middle going both directions. Their sense of risk management is, to put it mildly, different than mine.
Guy
6 Likes