I’d love a Free tourist visa like I first came to Taiwan on, no application, no health check, buy a ticket and fly 
Yes 
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I mean the rest of the world is realizing this isn’t a 90% fatality illness so yeah I agree. Open it wide. How long can a place hold on to the fantasy of zero covid?
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Maybe they are waiting for covid numbers worldwide to peak and come to a halt as the rest of the world develops herd immunity?
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Once more with feeling: there are no government officials saying that tourists are being considered for entry into Taiwan at this time.
Guy
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“In people younger than 70 years, infection fatality rates ranged from 0.00% to 0.31% with crude and corrected medians of 0.05%.”
Infection fatality rate of COVID-19 inferred from seroprevalence data
Can you please stop posting this? Taiwan is not after zero COVID. Even with Omicron running around in the wild, the way of life here hasn’t changed in many, many months. We need to be a contrast to China, which is being whack, in order to show that we are not China.
War’s a-brewing in the Eastern hemisphere and it’s because certain leaders of certain countries think they also own certain other countries that were sort of part of their bygone empires. Taiwan taking care to keep its electorate safe is the sensible political thing to do, even if those who don’t have voting rights end up suffering.
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Exactly! Thanks for doing the work to post links about the obvious.
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No Taiwan isn’t after zero covid. Above poster is absolutely right. Taiwan is after 0 media covid. They don’t care about Covid as long as they can print 0 local cases, reality doesn’t matter.
Make everything so local cases will not be found, do everything to find out imported cases even if CT values are up on the moon.
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Now you mention it, that sounds like a distinct possibility. But if that is the plan, they’re going to be mighty surprised when they open up to an apparently COVID-free world, and everyone instantly, uh, comes down with a cough and takes two days off work.
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and @Trillium , that can be their goal, but it’s in no way affecting our day to day lives any differently than before Omicron got in. Their efforts to attain zero COVID do not impact the general public. Do you or anyone you know know someone that was suddenly locked in a shopping mall or office building for two weeks because a COVID case was detected there? I don’t. That is what’s happening in China. In Hong Kong, no more than two people can gather at a time. Meanwhile, in Taiwan, I take crowded buses every day and eat in crowded restaurants most days and I interact with children that have no sense of hygiene (because they are children) every day. The only thing that has changed in my life is the wearing of a mask, which is something that was not even uncommon this time of year before COVID.
Some people are ending up in quarantine for testing positive or coming in contact with a positive case. That sucks for them and I would really be annoyed if it were me. But Taiwan has a population of 23.5 million. A few hundred are being sent to quarantine. The quarantine are places with private rooms and beds and bathrooms, not the floor of a shopping center like in China. People who make a fuss get their needs met by being transferred to five star hotels at the government’s expense. People who roll over have to suck up shitty conditions because they’d rather whine to their families or on Facebook than contact someone in charge. The rest of us go about life as usual. It’s a small price to pay to make sure that the electorate doesn’t think that China is doing things better.
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You can’t be serious. I know a couple of people who have had their lives utterly ruined by “zero COVID”, and several more who have been seriously affected. If one’s life involves nothing more than the daily grind of going to the office, slouching in front of the TV, and going to sleep, perhaps one might not be seriously affected. Anyone who actually wants to live is seriously constrained.
As for “quarantine”, the fact that cage is gilded doesn’t alter the fact that it’s a cage.
There is no purpose to any of this. Several countries have finally acknowledged that ‘omicron’ is nothing to be afraid of - or more accurately that the harms done by “mitigation” efforts far outweigh any minor benefit that they might deliver.
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Interesting. I go to yoga a few days a week, dance classes at least once a week, played volleyball a few times, hang out with friends at bars and coffee shops, and eat at restaurants with other humans too. I’m not a socialite but I certainly have a decent social life. I guess you can’t eat popcorn at movie theaters right now (or maybe you can) but I wouldn’t consider that a “serious” constrain, more of just a minor disappointment.
So few people are in quarantine right now, I don’t really know why this keeps being brought up.
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Like I said, it depends who you are. If you’re an ordinary person doing ordinary things, and you don’t see anything wrong with performing magic rituals with a cellphone and wearing a blue talisman on your face all day, maybe you’re less badly affected. Anyone with a business, and anyone who has built a life around freedom of movement (these two things are often related) has had their raison d’etre torn away, thrown into the mud, and stomped on. If there were a war on, you might be able to accept that with equanimity. The fact that it’s been done to you for no reason whatsoever is intolerable.
Because, if all was right with the world, that number should be zero.
There is no purpose in “quarantining” people for something that’s comparable to a bad cold - and perhaps more to the point, there’s no legal justification for it. Taiwan’s Constitution is not particularly clear on exactly how and when the Rights of citizens may be overruled: in other countries, the existence of the State or the population must be in mortal danger. Lacking such clear directions, the usual test is one of proportionality: can you demonstrate that, by infringing the rights of the few, the rights of the many will be protected?
Nobody has ever challenged the CECC on this issue, so they’ve never felt the need to justify themselves, even though it’s abundantly clear that the rights of the many are being overridden to protect the privileges of the few. Or the one.
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I guess anything and everything can be justified, as long as one can always point across the Taiwan Strait, and say, “Look over there! Bad guys!” 
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This is ridiculous, even offensive, to those of us who have watch these health authorities during the past two plus years.
Guy
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One could argue that the Taiwanese authorities’ behavior over the past two years has been both ridiculous and offensive.
Insulting to the intelligence of the population, disrespectful to science, and very harmful to the general population (particularly children).
Myself, and many others here, think they’ve done a great job!
Chen for Mayor! 
I’ve always said - Taiwan did the best job in the world from 31.12.2019 to April 2021. Give them 10/10 for that time (even though there have been some blatant errors - like not testing at end of quarantine which could have been 7-10 days instead of 14 all along with PCR and antibody test at the end of it. Surgical masks instead of FP2/N95 for airport staff or so on because it did work)
6/10 from April 2021 to September 2021 (because they didn’t have vaccines)
3/10 from October 2021 to January 2022
1/10 since mid January 2022 (with 0/10 reserved right now for Hong Kong).
On the other hand I would give Sweden a 8-9/10 for the overall time. Second overall countries like Norway, Denmark, Finland, Switzerland… - only looking at rich countries. Because yeah Africa except South Africa (pre omicron) did a good job too once they realised lockdown in a poor country will have people dropping dead like flies so simply doing nothing at all, cause that was the only option they had anyhow.
Oh yeah with “They” I did not mean the health authorities overall, but the people taking decisions on top level.
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