When this is all over, I suspect migrant workers are going to be leaving in droves. There are plenty of other countries on the planet that will welcome their skillsets without treating them like animals.
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Angela talks absolute shite.
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Qatar?
Taiwan is now in Qatar territory, IMO, as far as human rights are concerned. I was thinking Korea and the US. The US case is particularly interesting because it’s a sort of don’t-ask, don’t-tell arrangement; as long as you pay your taxes and don’t cause trouble, there’s a sort of grey immigration policy that welcomes foreigners.
Yeah just saw that graphic. That’s fucking outrageous.
Sick.
But then again Miaoli givernment is always the worst.
Definitely not happening. Just look at the number of Indian subcontinent workers living miserable lives in Singapore, UAE, Saudi etc. for 1 person who leaves, 3 more come in.
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Here’s a piece from CommonWealth Magazine with suggestions about what Taiwan should do going forward. There’s lots of focus on encouraging / pushing remote work. Main suggestions: “updated public health guidance [i.e. people still don’t know how this thing spreads, which I find both shocking and unsurprising], more workers’ rights and remote work, and increased testing.”
It has some pretty graphs comparing outbreaks in Australia and New Zealand with Taiwan, and interesting points about how NZ reduced mobility by 71% and Melbourne eventually by 67% (but more slowly); Taiwan’s currently at -37% from pre-outbreak levels. I liked that - I’ve been looking for this sort of detailed comparison for a while. I was surprised to see that Melbourne’s outbreak was, by 100K population, much bigger than what we’ve had so far - and our outbreak is roughly the same (by proportion) as New Zealand’s. Mind you, the numbers would look different if it was being counted as a “Taipei & New Taipei City” outbreak.
Change in mobility in Taiwan since things hit the fan: transit down 60%; parks down 50%; workplace around 20% (that’s a number they really focus on); groceries now basically unchanged after an initial dip!; retail down 40%, if I’m reading the graph right.
Anyway, interesting article.
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The thing is it’s much easier for aussies and kiwis to stay at home since most of them are living on quarter acre blocks of land. Trampoline on the back lawn, badminton on the front lawn, bbq facilities etc etc.
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I wish we had a better idea about the level of danger of casual outdoor activities: totally safe, or very very safe? At an individual level I doubt there’s much of a difference between the two, but at a population level I suppose there is. I saw a few hundred people the other evening when I was biking between Danshui and Guting. Everyone was masked, no crowds together, social distance, almost entirely individuals or pairs: almost everyone seemed totally responsible to my eyes. I don’t think we all should have been staying home but, eh, maybe? Are those kinds of activities helping continue virus spread? I hope not.
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I feel people here still don’t really understand the full extend of how bad the situation already is. Right now, level 3 has been extended, but I feel many people still believe it will end pretty soon.
Like people saying “Oh, let’s just wait for the end of level 3, then we can do X”. And they’re already talking about easing the restrictions:
As COVID-19 case numbers have stayed below 200 for four straight days and Taiwan’s R number has dropped to 0.46, an epidemiologist is calling for a Level 2.5 alert as a transition from Level 3 to Level 2 restrictions for up to two weeks.
[…]
Chen argued that due to this rapid progress, Taiwan could loosen some of its Level 3 restrictions soon. However, instead of directly dropping to Level 2, he suggested first entering an intermediary phase of Level 2.5 for at least one to two weeks.
Also, cases are dropping which leads people to believe that they will keep dropping and will eventually reach 0 again without much effort. I’ve read “this week <200 cases, next week <100 and then 0 again” at another place. That’s just really wishful thinking, I am afraid - I don’t expect normality to return to Taiwan before October or even later!
And only now they seem to realize the role of asymptomatic carriers:
At the outset, only the appearance of symptoms informed health authorities that infections had occurred, but now experts know about the importance of asymptomatic cases and the difficulty finding them, he said.
Large countries and heavily populated U.S. states have chosen to establish a dense network of testing stations to track down asymptomatic cases. On a smaller scale, the Australian city of Melbourne has concentrated its search in limited localities using a “carpet-bombing” style, while South Korea has conducted intensive tests on certain segments of the population, Chan said.
As Taiwan has a relatively low infection rate compared to other countries, the health expert said he doubts the need for such intensive methods. Instead, health services should look for representative samples in certain areas with high numbers of quarantined cases, he said.
Chan also advocated a study of antibodies and immunity targeted at previously undetected COVID infections. This would give a better idea of past infections and the reach of the pandemic in the country. People found to have developed antibodies could become less of a priority for vaccination, Chan said.
What has been common knowledge for more than one year now in other countries is all surprisingly new for many Taiwanese people. That’s another reason why I feel that many people here are in for an unfortunate surprise and we will see the current restrictions be in place for quite some time.
I’d be happy to be proven wrong, though!
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We just don’t know though do we? Case numbers are clearly dropping. Miaoli is a finite cluster . Vaccinations will help even in the short term because we’re targeting people at risk. If we stay at this level of lockdown for months the CDC is really going to have to sell it to the people. Especially once deaths drop, which they will. Personally I think we’re going to get the vaccines in, one way or another. By the end of July the end will be in sight, even if some distance off.
Let’s see what the F man has to say.
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What’s missing from the entire conversation is that the average person’s risk of death has almost nothing to do with COVID even in the middle of an unchecked epidemic. I’ve posted numbers from reliable authorities and been called an idiot, a liar, and various other things, but not once has anyone ever said “no, you numbers are wrong, and here’s why you’re wrong”.
This is the basic reason we still don’t know which interventions “work”. The difference they make - all of them - as compared against your all-cause mortality risk, is so small that the effects are very hard to measure.
It’s not the case that if you don’t get vaccinated and don’t wear a mask and frolic within six inches of random strangers you’re two, five, ten times more likely to die: the 12-month risk-of-death for a healthy 50-year-old changes from perhaps 0.40% to 0.44%. Therefore, even if you found some magic intervention that removed your COVID risk entirely (perhaps vaccines come close?) you haven’t achieved anything dramatic. If you’re looking at a marginal intervention like masks, your risk might reduce from 0.440% to, I dunno, 0.435%. The fact remains that, if you’re going to die in your 50th year, you’re going to die (more than likely) of something other than COVID.
Oh FFS. Here we go again.
Those numbers I quoted were averaged from US actuarial tables, published COVID and all-cause deaths in the UK (2020) for the 50-54 age range, and my understanding of the research to date on masks. If you think you know better, then show where I’ve gone wrong.
Yes, we’ve got plenty of people who are infected who might not ever be identified/diagnosed. This all started with 1 infected person and look at the destruction.
Really wishful thinking to rid entirely this virus. For Chen to suggest easing now is not responsible. Believe me, I hate this level 3. I want to be out and about. I want to mingle. BUT. I’m not so young anymore and I’m a smoker.
I don’t see things resembling anything normal until perhaps late Q1. Deeply saddened
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I have to laugh at the pic in the Focus Taiwan’s article giving an example of a divider. What is that small slab of wood supposed to do? Even if you’re a believer in dividers working (I’m not), that thing doesn’t even cover the whole table.
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The purpose is obvious. It’s to break social bonds. Different countries used different methods to achieve this, but the target was the same.
Absolutely incredible that nobody is protesting about this BS.
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Oy vey… I’m not going to get involved in another round of this. Doesn’t this exhaust you though?
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Well, you were wondering what the purpose was.
Sure, you can believe it doesn’t have any purpose at all if you wish.
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