Like it or not, I think the Government will have to open things up when Vaccinations in Taiwan (fully vaccinated) get to around 70% of those eligible. Even then, arrivals from some Countries would have to Quarantine and the question of whether the unvaccinated should be allowed in at all would have to be considered. Allowing Tourists might be a bit more selective for a while, but you can bet that there will be some political interference - ie, will TW say no to unvaccinated arrivals from the USA without Quarantine and stick by that even if the USA uses political pressure?
I think Masks in crowded places will have to stay for a while, it was pretty common on Public Transport before in any case.
@QuaSaShao has been writing about the situation in Oregon for a while now.
I get it can be difficult to follow as he seems to split his time between the US, Hokkaido, and Taiwan. But in this situation it is totally about the US.
I had posted one dinosaur. Glad to see it is catching.
I read about someone who had a panic attack at the vaccination site. If stuff like wearing a silly suit helps others calm down, it is more than welcome.
I thought the lack of PPE in the NHS made the international news a few months back. Certainly a lot of doctors and nurses were complaining about it at the time. It was an enormous shambles, exacerbated by Matt Hancock giving supply contracts to his little chums (some of whom had neither the ability nor the experience to deliver, and ended up wasting a lot of the taxpayer’s money).
As it turns out, the number of deaths among health workers hasn’t been remarkably different to the general public. So if something remarkably different happened in another country, there might be a less-than-obvious reason (although I suspect it’ll have something to do with $$$).
If you’re wondering what will happen when Taiwan reaches the magic number of 60% (or 70%) of those eligible being vaccinated and everyone who wants to be vaccinated will be then that future has already arrived here in Oregon. For months after vaccines became available the governor announced that once the state reached 60% and vaccinations were available to everyone things would go back to normal. No more mask mandate, no more social distancing, indoor dining would return, kids would return to school.
That day arrived on June 30th and by then things were looking good. Almost no one was dying of Covid. The daily case rates were down to double digits and dropping. The mask mandate was ended and everything else went back to the way it had been before the pandemic. Life was good.
The problem is that’s when the Delta variant hit and Plan Alpha went out the window. Within days the case rates had shot up into the hundreds. People started dying in droves again. ICU’s were filling up. Within weeks the daily case rates were in the thousands and in six weeks Oregon’s daily case rates and deaths regularly far exceeded the worst days of the pandemic last winter.
The governor tried to reimpose a mask mandate but the usual suspects – that other 40% – ignored it and it wasn’t enforced. Now there seems to be two parallel realities. State and local governments seem to have gone awol on the pandemic. The news media barely mention Covid and most people seem to have given up and are going about their daily business with little or no precautions. Meanwhile doctors and nurses on the front lines are complaining about burnout and hospital administrators are struggling to import healthcare workers. ICU’s are brimming and the pandemic is worse then ever.
At this point no one really knows what’s next but it’s clear that Covid is winning. The real problem is that now conditions are riper than ever for a new variant and if it turns out to be more deadly than Delta then God help us.
I’ve been trying to get back since June but my (Taiwanese) wife has us all holed up here in our house because she doesn’t want to go thru quarantine in Taiwan. We barely go out. Only to the grocery store, occasionally to buy takeout, and lots of hiking and biking. Right now I’m only waiting for the third booster shot to become available then I’ll have to bite the bullet and return to Taiwan for business purposes.
Perhaps they are suffering burnout due to masses of healthcare workers being fired for not taking the vaccine? Those remaining are now performing the shifts of multiple workers.
After weeks of explosive growth, the COVID-19′s delta variant expansion appears to be peaking.
The number of new cases requiring hospitalization, which skyrocketed in August, should start to flatten after Sept. 6 and will begin to decline in October or November, said Peter Graven, the leading data scientist at Oregon Health & Science University. Graven has been modeling expected coronavirus hospitalization numbers on a weekly basis since the beginning of the pandemic. . . .
Yet the pandemic is far from over. The potential high point next week of hospitalized COVID-19 patients could reach an all-time high of 1,208.
Graven attributed the expected turnaround to more masks and more vaccines. . . .
Umm, no. N95s are fairly effective when put on and used properly. Cloth masks are a little effective when used correctly in lab tests. In the real world, studies indicate that they are somewhere between minimally effective and worse than nothing.
But surgical masks, which weren’t mentioned aren’t ‘cloth masks’. They are effective and cloth masks that have multiple layers are effective when worn properly.
I think we’re gonna have to disagree as to which effects outweigh which. It’s an endless pit of what-ifs and coulda woulda shouldas. Obviously policymakers had to make a cost-benefit analysis. Maybe they’re wrong. Maybe they’re right.
