Singapore seems a bit odd, perhaps its the way they record also.
Singapore has had 192K positive cases (Population just under 6M), vs Taiwan 16,406 so far, BUT, Singapore has only had 380 deaths vs 847 in Taiwan. I wonder if they count deaths differently there? They have also tested 350% of the population vs about 30% of the population in Taiwan (10 times the number of tests!).
Whilst the new cases are high at present, they only have 1550 sick enough to be in hospital, and of that only 59 in the ICU. Presumably the High Vaccination Rate has something to do with that, likewise the “lockdown” of their foreign labourers outside of working hours.
Who in their right mind and power of persuasion will justify opening Taiwan up for all of these breakthrough infections? I say we continue holding the fortress until more can be learned about the breakthroughs and their affects on the vaxed and unvaxed. I’ve had 2 shots of High End but my daughter and all of her classmates have not been shot. Chaos reigns with the economies and logistics etc outside of Taiwan while we are now accustomed to the situation we’ve been living through. Keep the borders closed and/or maintain 2 weeks of quarantine.
Exports are up, the Taiwan economy is booming. Internal tourism is playing its part. I see no reason for Taiwan to open its doors to face the issues Israel, the UK, Singapore are facing.
Politically, it’s suicidal. I wouldn’t expect quarantine to end before…the medicine gets better.
Edit: Has anyone noticed the lack of teachers and how the base rate of 650 seems laughable these days. It’s not all bad.
I’m not sure if there’s that much more to learn. Vaccines help, a lot; breakthroughs still happen, and will continue to happen, and probably nothing’s going to stop that. Maybe with early variants wiping out the virus was feasible, but it’s not going to happen now. There are better treatments that are becoming more widely available. I’m not saying we should open the borders now, but we should do so when a lot more people are vaccinated, and after CNY seems about the right time. If not then, I don’t think there will be any other “right” time to do it. There will be a surge when the quarantine is ended. I’m not sure if that surge will be any different in March versus June versus December versus 2023.
The two-week quarantine destroys the international tourism business - no one’s going to visit this island if they have to spend the first two weeks sitting in a hotel. It’s immensely frustrating for many people in Taiwan - people here often only get a week or two vacation, so the quarantine means no trips to Japan or South Korea or Europe. Businesses can’t easily bring in engineers or consultants - nor can Taiwanese engineers or consultants go elsewhere. Right now, the quarantine still makes sense, but as soon as the vaccination rate goes up, it’ll stop making sense.
The virus is going to come in, and we all have to accept that. Many of us in Taiwan (perhaps most? not sure how that works) are going to catch it, a handful of us seriously, but with the vaccines it’ll be a lot less serious. That’s not much comfort for the handful of people who are going to die - but it’s still going to happen.
Places all over the world not able to source parts. Amazon and Shopify can’t fill orders with merchandise not being produced or delivered.
How many online sellers or repair services can get their hands on parts ordered so they can ship locally or install/replace items?
A bearing for a lawn mower? Replacement part for a refrigerator? A new replacement valve for the sink? Pressure control valve for the bathroom in the new house? Shingles for the roof? Energy prices through the roof?
Yep. The island appears to have enough misfits eager to take $600/hour. Of course these people need someone to sponsor their arc and provide the income to pay the bills. Terrible to call them misfits. Might as well be talking about myself.
Inflation and scarcity are causing chaos in the supply chain. A 20 foot container to the US used to cost 3 to 5k USD. Now it’s 15 to 20k USD — if you can even get one. Simple items like wood pallets have gone up 50% in price overnight. Raw materials are hard to get and going for twice the normal price. If the chaos doesn’t subside soon it will cause long term structural damage to the global economy.
You guys need to decide what it is you want. Do you want to be “protected”, quarantined, masked up, jabbed, certificated, made to follow this rule and that rule and the other rule for your “safety”, and precipitate a global economic meltdown … or do you want people left alone to carry on making (and delivering) your iPhones and refrigerator spares? Because you can’t have it both ways.
There is no such thing as an “non-essential business”. When governments decided that there was such a thing, and shut them all down, they disrupted the entire fabric that those businesses were tied into. But since politicians have never worked an honest day in their lives, and think that potatoes and drinking water and televisions just magically appear somehow, they didn’t realise that. And nobody ventured to correct their misconceptions.
Or it could be that they’re not as stupid as we think, and knew precisely what would happen.
you folks saying quarantine will be extended past March and possibly until June? that was originally my OPTIMISTIC take, but as somebody mentioned, opening is essentially political suicde.
