Stockpiling was one option. Or they could just buy them. But I presume they refuse to purchase anything made by Chinese company?
All of the tests that I have bought or been given in Australia, Portugal, Spain, Thailand etc. were manufactured by Chinese companies. I would imagine there are many millions available for delivery within days and they are very cheap. I would have hoped that having being approved for use in most major developed countries would be sufficient.
Instead I saw a news piece a few days ago with the government talking about making agreements to ramp up domestic production for delivery in June…
No. There is a number of domestic firms that have (and been approved by authorities) ability to make rapid test kits. I know one in fact.
So, why wasn’t Chen/CECC accumulating all the domestic rapid test kits for such a rainy day as is now happening?
There certainly are, but their manufacturing capacity is insufficient to meet the current requirements and the government has not been stockpiling as mentioned earlier. So the current options are a lack of tests, or purchasing non-Taiwan made ones
“…and then they came for people in restaurants toasting guests at other tables, and I said nothing, because I was not a person in a restaurant toasting guests at other tables…”
Yeah, Taiwan has been making them this whole time. There was also news recently that at least some of the tests being used to fulfill the current demand are being imported from “overseas” - it wasn’t stated what that means, but I can’t imagine there are too many possibilities. Maybe people buying the tests can check what it says on the box.
Whether one considers testing to be of any importance is one question. If one considers testing to be important then having two plus years to stockpile tests feels like a massive fail.
Exactly my point. Massive massive failure to stockpile rapid test kits.
It’s not that capacity is not enough NOW, the capacity has been there for over 1 year or more to build up a chest-full of them for today’s predicament that CECC has put the country in.
Did you ask? I had one eating in class, so i asked him to finish his snack in the hall and he toddled off. Or, sometimes they bring a “friend” so i started asking for the friend to sign the attendance sheet because of covid, and the guests stopped coming to class. Everyone else is all masked up all the time
I have a couple of gangster-ish students in my remedial night classes who always have the chin strap look. Or take half of class to “eat.” A third was an exaggeration, but there’s definitely a few of them. I have enough stress in my life without getting into a pissing match with them about masking rules that I’m not even sure do much to stop Omicron. I did talk to a few of them a couple weeks ago, but after the masks being back on again for a while they always come back off soon enough. And definitely by the next class. I’m telling you, young Taiwanese don’t give a shit about COVID anymore. It was such a boogeyman for them two years ago, and now they shrug when I bring it up.
Really. What age are your students? I teach IELTS adult classes, around around 8-10 in a class, in quite small classrooms, and they always wear masks. I’m sure they are getting fed up with it, as am I, but they are very compliant.
The daytime students are normal uni age, 18 to 22 and they’re mostly compliant.
The night school (ah the joys of being a non-tenured contract lecturer) skews a bit older. Average age seems to be mid to late 20s with some middle aged people thrown in for good measure. They’re more difficult in general for reasons you can probably guess and I won’t go into here. But some of them are always pulling down their masks in class. It is what it is, and I’ve talked to a couple of them but I’m not going to report anyone over it.
My class sizes are pretty big; range anywhere from 20 something to 50 something.
This is exactly what happened in NZ and Aussie. I wouldn’t really get too upset. Every government in the world is playing permanent catchup on Covid supplies and every commentator is permanently criticizing those governments for not being pro active enough in forward planning.
