And we are back to let the ugly people die. Round and round…sigh. It is not over no matter how much we want it to be. The measures are logical not fear induced and tailored to our context here in Taiwan, where we live cheek to cheek.
This is not China milking the restrictions for political gain. Nor US where denial has left the economy hollow and fueled further economic divide. It may not be perfect in Taiwan but it could have been much worse. And that is not scaremongering.
If we do not learn from 2020, when the next one comes around, and it will -no scaremongering, just an extrapolation - we need those lessons. We need to be ready.
We cannot control when China attacks nor when the next plague strikes but we can handle our response.
Well the let it rip does not work either. Continuous exposure and contagion does not develop super duper immunity, on the contrary, we get all these amazing variants and people end up with a weakened system and worse symptoms.
Now, how did we get a more contagious variant that is still strong enough? Mmm
At least Taiwan does not have 30 million unemployed and hence with no medical access.
I’m not quite sure where I wrote “let the ugly people die”. But, yeah, I don’t agree that everything should be geared around trying to make sure that the ugly people live forever, irrespective of the harm done to everyone else.
Are they logical? All of them? You don’t have to look very hard at all to find illogical things done by (or with the approval of) the Taiwanese government in the name of the pandemic, including trying to disinfect nature, locking up migrant workers, mandating pointless plastic barriers, keeping a nominal quarantine while deliberately defeating the purpose of quarantine (family members being allowed to pick people up from the airport), and of course the fact that we’re still obliged to wear masks outside then take them off when entering a packed restaurant or bar. If you think all of these measures are logical, either you’ve been misled or you haven’t been paying attention (and I don’t think the latter is true).
Yeah sure, China’s restrictions are political and wrong but Taiwan’s restrictions are perfectly logical and nothing to do with politics…
I ask you again: What criteria would need to be fulfilled in your eyes for this to be over? Or do you want everyone to remain in a constant state of fear until the next actual pandemic?
It’s likely impossible to explain the “how” with certainty, but if you wanted to deliberately create more contagious variants by a directed-evolution-type approach, the way you’d go about that would be to introduce selection pressures that favor increased transmissibility (e.g., social distancing and mask wearing) alongside maintaining a lower-level infection for longer (e.g., vaccines and treatments, so people are less sick and stay on their feet). Let 'er rip (increased number of iterations) would be just one part.
I would probably agree that there might have been value in strong global and regional lockdowns in early 2020 (as long as all the harm and deaths caused by those are acceptable, for some reason), but it’s a bit too late for that now.
It’s irrelevant whether “let it rip” works or not. It will rip. Regardless of pretty much any attempt to stop it doing so. Placing emphasis on the inevitable consequences of it ripping seem like the definition of scaremongering to me.
They will get the 50 percent quicker than that. Pretty easy to do. Just start talking about kids dying after recovering from covid. Just don’t talk about why other countries didn’t see the same thing happening.
That’s now the third time they’ve dangled a carrot like that in front of the public, and they’ve reneged on their promise twice. I wonder if this time the public will tell the CECC where they can shove their carrot.
At least things are interesting here in Taiwan. Not quite in the league of Victoria, Australia… but they’re certainly no slouches in terms of their vaccination agenda.
Yeah, I’m afraid my gut feeling is that people will just do as they’re told. So far there has been precious little pushback against the CECC and whatever-it-is they’re up to.
I’m just hoping that the gubmint are pushing their luck just a little too far. When Taiwanese people really get upset, it’s a sight to behold. It’s unlikely they’ll refuse en masse, but not impossible.
