ha yep. I would not doubt it if the “Lion King” contracted COVID from a migrant worker (whom was working at one of the tea houses) who was perhaps whisked into TW illegally and perhaps already COVID positive
Taiwan’s tea shops become a COVID-19 breeding ground
Chen, now a distinguished professor at the Academia Sinica in Taipei, also concedes that he and others behind Taiwan’s COVID-19 surveillance program never envisioned how the shadowy world of Taiwan’s hostess tea shops would be uniquely vulnerable to spreading COVID-19 like wildfire.
Many of the Wanhua tea shops are relatively innocent: clients are mostly older men who have tea with middle-age hostesses who keep them company and make conversation. However, some reportedly operate as fronts for brothels and employ migrant women who are in Taiwan illegally.
It’s not hard to see how COVID-19 would ricochet easily through such an environment. The shops are often poorly ventilated and dimly lit. It’s also common for patrons to “bar-hop” from shop to shop and mingle with multiple hostesses and other patrons. “There is no way that you can wear masks in the tea houses, no matter if it is with sex workers or a just normal tea houses because you are eating food, you are drinking tea and you are singing, and so on,” says Lim, the legislator for the area.
Combine that with customers who aren’t eager to tell contact tracers—or their own families—that they visited such an infamous area, along with marginalized workers who may be hesitant to come forward, and the red-light district in Wanhua has become the catalyst for more than 1,000 of the infections reported across Taiwan.
Chen says health officials didn’t believe the tea houses would be a problem because two previous cases where COVID-19 patients went to other so-called “adult entertainment” venues didn’t result in transmissions.
Chen says health officials didn’t believe the tea houses would be a problem because two previous cases where COVID-19 patients went to other so-called “adult entertainment” venues didn’t result in transmissions.
lol, what kind of non-sense is this? This is the type of stuff I just don’t understand. How does somebody do such a good job and then turn around and say something like this?
I think somebody before alluded to the notion that pilots are scapegoated, I think human trafficking and sexy tea have attributed to this outbreak much more than the government is willing to admit, but that’s my opinion.
Yeah I do not know how true that quote is to be honest – it seems to defy all logic, so I prefer to think there is a bit of embellishment/mistranslation there. But I do know they are all quite overworked and, with the hand they were dealt, I think have overall done a fantastic job comparative to other countries.
Said family just posted now images of them arriving the airport and ‘separating’ their family for quarantine. Note this is after they already posted they were in quarantine and after posting their quarantine meals even tagging the restaurant. Only now (1 hour ago) they posted in a long English post about they need to separate to quarantine….
Makes me wonder….
I won’t even bother saying anything. Monkeys land. I’m sure officials know already and probably even condone it.
It ends in the next few days. They need to give more warning. They must be lowering it and are afraid people will start the party too soon. We at least need a statement from Taipei about their plans in the even of lowering restrictions. People need to make plans, and that’s hard at the weekend.
Whatever they do, it’s almost inevitable that “cases” will start to rise and we’ll get another lockdown. At minimum, the CECC have put themselves in a position where they have to prove that the Level 3.5 restrictions (a) were necessary and (b) worked.
Exactly, so much foot traffic near Zhongshan MRT yesterday. I was there for an urgent clinic visit but there were hundreds of people getting pastries and window shopping…
Wouldn’t be surprised if weekly averages increase a bit before going down again…
If they’re debating down to the last minute they don’t have their act together and I doubt that’s the case. They know what they’re going to do or they wouldn’t be hinting at it for the last several days. I think they just don’t want to announce it and have a huge spike or another Delta outbreak and have to reverse. What we need to know, or what I need to know, is what restrictions will remain.
Do the CECC announcements mean much for changing restrictions anyway? They did change limits and recommendations about eating in restaurants, for example - but all the cities decided otherwise.
The CECC changed it from a Central Government decision and specifically allowed cities to make their own decision regarding the relaxed rules. So it depends, if the CECC wants to do a Nation wide relaxation of restrictions or leave up to cities.
Also wouldn’t be surprised if we see easing of restrictions in cities that haven’t had any cases for a while whilst up North not as many restrictions will be relaxed, or not as relaxed as other cities.
