Why Taiwan's Coronavirus Response Is Among The Best Globally (cnn.com) 157
Why does Taiwan have less than 400 confirmed cases of Covid-19? Taiwan's experience with the 2003 SARS outbreak "helped many parts of the region react faster to the current coronavirus outbreak and take the danger more seriously than in other parts of the world," reports CNN, "both at a governmental and societal level, with border controls and the wearing of face masks quickly becoming routine as early as January in many areas."
Their article also notes that Taiwan "has a world-class health care system, with universal coverage," which drew praise in new report published in the Journal of the American Medical Association: "Taiwan rapidly produced and implemented a list of at least 124 action items in the past five weeks to protect public health," report co-author Jason Wang, a Taiwanese doctor and associate professor of pediatrics at Stanford Medicine, said in a statement. "The policies and actions go beyond border control because they recognized that that wasn't enough." This was while other countries were still debating whether to take action. In a study conducted in January, Johns Hopkins University said Taiwan was one of the most at-risk areas outside of mainland China -- owing to its close proximity, ties and transport links.
Among those early decisive measures was the decision to ban travel from many parts of China, stop cruise ships docking at the island's ports, and introduce strict punishments for anyone found breaching home quarantine orders. In addition, Taiwanese officials also moved to ramp up domestic face-mask production to ensure the local supply, rolled out island-wide testing for coronavirus -- including re-testing people who had previously unexplained pneumonia -- and announced new punishments for spreading disinformation about the virus.
"Given the continual spread of Covid-19 around the world, understanding the action items that were implemented quickly in Taiwan, and the effectiveness of these actions in preventing a large-scale epidemic, may be instructive for other countries," Wang and his co-authors wrote.... Taiwan is in such a strong position now that, after weeks of banning the export of face masks in order to ensure the domestic supply, the government said Wednesday that it would donate 10 million masks to the United States, Italy, Spain and nine other European countries, as well as smaller nations who have diplomatic ties with the island.
Their article also notes that Taiwan "has a world-class health care system, with universal coverage," which drew praise in new report published in the Journal of the American Medical Association: "Taiwan rapidly produced and implemented a list of at least 124 action items in the past five weeks to protect public health," report co-author Jason Wang, a Taiwanese doctor and associate professor of pediatrics at Stanford Medicine, said in a statement. "The policies and actions go beyond border control because they recognized that that wasn't enough." This was while other countries were still debating whether to take action. In a study conducted in January, Johns Hopkins University said Taiwan was one of the most at-risk areas outside of mainland China -- owing to its close proximity, ties and transport links.
Among those early decisive measures was the decision to ban travel from many parts of China, stop cruise ships docking at the island's ports, and introduce strict punishments for anyone found breaching home quarantine orders. In addition, Taiwanese officials also moved to ramp up domestic face-mask production to ensure the local supply, rolled out island-wide testing for coronavirus -- including re-testing people who had previously unexplained pneumonia -- and announced new punishments for spreading disinformation about the virus.
"Given the continual spread of Covid-19 around the world, understanding the action items that were implemented quickly in Taiwan, and the effectiveness of these actions in preventing a large-scale epidemic, may be instructive for other countries," Wang and his co-authors wrote.... Taiwan is in such a strong position now that, after weeks of banning the export of face masks in order to ensure the domestic supply, the government said Wednesday that it would donate 10 million masks to the United States, Italy, Spain and nine other European countries, as well as smaller nations who have diplomatic ties with the island.
Answer: They did not believe the Chinese officials (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:3)
From the very beginning the Taiwanese acted as if the virus was a serious threat. They ignored the soothing lies from China and WHO (headed by a Chinese puppet). I wish the rest of the World acted the same.
~JudeanPeople'sFront
How does one reconcile the lie that China hid a cluster it reported 2019-Jan31 to W.H.O. and soothed others with it? Hiding the lie was soothing? Not hiding the lie was agitation? What date is "from the very beginning" and do you have a citation other than The Lancet's article girding NPR and Vox reportage? The article written by academics with claims no other advance of this pathogen has corroborated?
Re:Answer: They did not believe the Chinese offici (Score:4, Funny)
From the very beginning the Taiwanese acted as if the virus was a serious threat. They ignored the soothing lies from China and WHO (headed by a Chinese puppet). I wish the rest of the World acted the same.
If only Trump was smarter than the WHO puppets, America could have been saved.
I remember it as if it were yesterday.
Mid January, Democrats were all arguing for lockdowns and border closures. Republicans were telling everyone to shelter in place. Close all non essential businesses! Spare no expense! The rallying cries of Fox. Every citizen was united as one demanding social distancing, facemasks and testing.
And there was Trump, skilled mastermind that he was. Knew all the experts were wrong. Knew not to trust the CDC & WHO. Knew in his heart it was a pandemic. Way before anyone else did.
But he caved. The mighty Trump had stood up to impeachment. Stood up to daily ridicule at the press briefings. But he was as powerless as a small child now, standing in front of the WHO puppetmaster.
The WHO puppetmaster through sheer force of will beat back the onslaught of Trump, all the Democracts, all the Repubicans and every single American expert. And passionate non expert alike. And forced America to not take the threat seriously.
I'm not sure how much a WHO puppetmaster is paid, but it's Yuan well spent.
All hail the WHO puppetmaster. Singlehandedly bringing the once mighty USA to its knees.
Re: (Score:2)
lived in taiwan for 3 years. (Score:5, Interesting)
i commented on this before, from first-hand experience, having lived there for 3 years. sadly, people decided that it should be "voted down" to zero. reality-denial at its best, unfortunately. perhaps now that this is *about* taiwan and i *lived there*...
https://slashdot.org/comments.... [slashdot.org]
basically, yes, they are much more responsive, and have had numerous incidents (swine flu) which put everyone into "this is just routine" mode as well as having procedures that got activated immediately. where all other politicians were going "nono, no need to panic, everybody, it's not happening it's not happening it's not happening", trying to play down reality, taiwan just "got on with it".
they're not living in fear. there is no lockdown. 100% of people wear masks when travelling on buses, trains, taxis and other forms of public transport. cafes and restaurants do temperature skin spot-checks, courtesy of a smiling assistant at the door.
(aside: it also helps that the temperatures there had already begun to climb to the point where the virus is very quickly non-viable. summer last year it reached 43 Centigrade).
I don't think temps will matter (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Yes they do, which they set to about 28C, maybe 26C if your feeling rich. A lot of them also only use their AC at night while sleeping.
Swine Flu (Score:2)
2019 was a bad year for the pigs in China. The African Swine flu took out a lot of pigs,
roughly 1/4 of the world population of all pigs. The financial loss is said to be around $141 billion.
For those who might be interesting, here is one of the links:
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/01/opinion/china-swine-fever.html
Pork price went double to triple the usual price, it was a reminder of how important flu detection and prevention.
So when COVID appeared, there was a lot of hardware and people in the field to fin
Re: (Score:2)
The negative response to your comments is IMO the pro-China comment brigade here. They are a not insignificant bunch, and you'll see it in action if you pay attention to how some comments are rated in light of China's official policy stances.
Taiwan's excellent example has been suppressed by WHO as well, who is deeply loyal to China's policies.
Re: (Score:3)
So how big of an air conditioner would you suggest to cool the outside temperature of a country, of course they have AC dipshit. That still doesn't effect the weather outside fuckwit.
Re: (Score:2)
Parent was being sarcastic.
You must be American not to see that, not because you're stupid, but with all the fucked up lies and shit happening in the States, you probably have to take every stupid sounding thing as literally meant these days.
Re: (Score:3)
Whether you believe it or not, seasonal trends in respiratory diseases are a real thing. The latitude / season dependence is however weakened (but still present) in more affluent nations where indoor climate control is ubiquitous and people don't "cut back" on heating to save money.
Cardiovascular disease (a much bigger killer than respiratory disease) is also seasonally linked (temperature-related changes in blood composition and vessel restriction).
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
The only reason flu cases go down in the summer in the western world is because we're outside more. The sun is a very powerful disinfectant (after all, the same UV rays that give you skin cancer also destroy genetic material found in bacteria, viruses and such).
But the bigger reason is in the winter, people huddle together in buildings and crowd together, making it easy for diseases to spread. In the summer when everyone goes out, not only is the lifetime of the germs reduced from sunlight, but there's more
Re: (Score:2)
The only reason flu cases go down in the summer in the western world is because we're outside more. The sun is a very powerful disinfectant (after all, the same UV rays that give you skin cancer also destroy genetic material found in bacteria, viruses and such).
The WHO disagrees [ctvnews.ca] with that assumption. Sunlight is not very effective at breaking down virus, the most effective bands never reach earths surface. Further people work the same distance apart, shop the same distance apart, move on the streets the same distance apart year round. Outdoor activities at best are a small difference. The reason this makes a difference for the flu is it is barely transmitted at all with about 1.28 people infected per person. A small difference can make it go below 1 and thus
Re: (Score:2)
How do you air con the outside? ...
Did not know that this is possible
(P.S. I avoid air coned places like the plague ... it makes me sick. Go figure.)
Re: (Score:2)
OP's solution is to probably burn coal.
Re: (Score:2)
Wow! All that technology and trade and they haven’t discovered air conditioning. Good thing there aren’t tightly bunched up groups of people there with artificially cooled air, they could have been in real trouble!
funny man :) in the town i lived in - shenkeng - every room in every building has aircon. you can see them clearly - example here:
https://www.google.com/maps/@2... [google.com]
Re: (Score:2)
Punishment for spreading disinformation (Score:2)
I like the sound of that!
Lock him up! Lock him up!
Re: (Score:2)
He'd only corrupt the prison staff.
They have experience (Score:2)
After something similar sweeps over them every decade or so, they just went into the lockdown routine, and it was certainly easier for their politicians to simply say "ya know the drill, masks on everyone!" than to try to convince your population that yes, this time we have to do it too, not just the far east.
Re: (Score:2)
The problem in the west wasn't a resistant population - it was resistant governments, fearing that pointing out the self-obvious (and well-researched) fact that masks help against respiratory diseases would do more harm than good, in terms of causing hoarding.
In the words of the immortal knight... [tenor.com]
NO, not universal coverage (Score:2)
What actually is important is early medical policy decisions. One could argue that to the extent such decisions are decentralized, diversity of decision can point to what is right and what is wrong. That is better than a single wrong central policy
seen this before (Score:5, Interesting)
It's good that they were well prepared (Score:4, Insightful)
Epidemiologists know what needs to be done to stop this. They've been shouting it to anyone who'd listen, which sadly was only other epidemiologists.
Spend several billion on general purpose vaccine research [youtube.com]. Regulate human and animal interaction more (no, bat soup didn't cause the virus, but the poor sanitary conditions of the web markets might have, and China isn't the only country with Wet Markets). Universal Healthcare so folks can go to the doctor when they're sick before they get everybody else sick. More national stock piles, even if medical supply companies don't like it [threadreaderapp.com]. And stop using "Just in Time" business models with hospitals. They need more capacity.
Doing the above would require a sea change in national and perhaps global politics. It would mean pulling back from decades of Austerity and raising taxes on the wealthy [nytimes.com]. That means changing who we vote for and how we vote [theguardian.com].
Re: (Score:2)
Nearly a decade ago now my father had a stem cell transplant to treat a lymphoma. Basically, they inject you with such a heavy dose of chemo it destroys your entire immune system - everything. The only reason people
We'll take the economic hit either way (Score:2)
That said, there's no reason our economy has to collapse. We just need to get money into the hands of the unemployed for about 6 months. We've got plenty of food, shelter, etc to go around. But we have to be willing to hand it out while everybody honkers down and waits for a
Re: (Score:2)
but I'm wary of this becoming the 'new normal'. e.g. every couple years we all have to go out in masks and an extra 1-3% die while the economy nose dives from folks avoiding crowds.
An expert at a panel at UCSF was asked about this a few weeks ago, whether this was going to be the new normal that every decade or so we have another pandemic. Her response was that this isn't the new normal, it's the old, old normal. This is a battle we've been fighting for a million years. It's never going to end.
That was all she said. I'll add that it seems likely that we'll get better at creating vaccines quickly.
Quite simple (Score:2)
Unlike US, Taiwan didn't fall for China trap (Score:2)
Unlike US, Taiwan refused to blindly believe WHO;
Re:Indeed! (Score:5, Interesting)
In a few words: It's a fucking ISLAND!
The United Kingdom is also an island with radar control of it's surrounding ocean. The response here is a total incoherent mess and the result is a disaster. South Korea is not an island and is doing fine. Germany is highly interconnected and isn't doing badly. The question is not connectivity the question is the level of testing and isolation of people who are potential carriers, which is what all the successful responses have in common. Mask wearing may also be a big factor. (see the graphs on Masks Save Lives [maskssavelives.org] though note that New Zealand is strangely missing.
Re:Indeed! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Actually, Hungary is not doing badly at all. [worldometers.info]
In fact, they're doing better than Czechia. [worldometers.info] So it seems your entire post is a bunch of BS.
Re:Indeed! (Score:5, Insightful)
Let me teach you how to read graphics during an a pandemic. Absolute numbers don't matter, their cap is dependent on population and their number is dependent on starting time which varies from country to country.
What matters is how closely each fit the logarithmic growth curve and how steep that curve is. Hungary is currently seeing an 8.5% daily growth. Czechia is seeing 6% despite a large number of confirmed cases.
The Czech Republic is doing far better than Hungary.
That was your free lesson of the day.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
The only land border South Korea has is with North Korea, a border that was closed and fortified long before this virus came along. South Korea may as well be an island.
Re: (Score:2)
You're neglecting the numerous tunnels under that border through which spies come and go at will.
Re: (Score:3)
Well, one thing that makes UK different is a massive diaspora from all over the world, and specially from former British colonies, as well as a massive number of temp workers mostly from eastern Europe. Members of these diasporas travel all the time to and from the UK. But sure, a huge portion of Taiwan's population are Chinese diaspora too. Yet, that makes Taiwan somewhat different from UK.
Re: (Score:3)
Ultimately, just about *every* country is different in some way.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
One big difference is that the UK didn't (and in some cases couldn't) isolate itself from the rest of Europe (and the world) until much later in the infection curve than Thailand did.
Re: (Score:2)
Taiwan I mean.
Re: Indeed! (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Taiwan is not a nation. So the WHO couldn't tell lies to Taiwan. If they cut air travel to and from Red China, are they like Trump? Taiwan must be xenophobic racists.
If they cut all travel to China, not just for Chinese people, and especially if they cut all travel whatsoever requiring quarantine, then they are showing the difference between a racist Trumpian "blame the Chinese people" strategy and a sensible "oh shit there's an infection in China and it's spreading to the world" strategy. I mean, China cut almost all travel from China. Does that make Chinese people anti Chinese racists? Don't be stupid.
Re:Indeed! (Score:5, Informative)
Taiwan is just as connected to the global economy as anywhere else - and in particular, highly connected to countries that were infected with the disease early. The fact that they're an island is literally irrelevant. They're also the 53rd most populous country in the world (out of 233), and one of the most population dense (density increases disease spread).
Whatever levels of face mask production existed before the pandemic, they're dramatically higher now. China - formerly half the world's supply - increased production 450% in just a month. Any country could have chosen to get into mass produciton of face masks; they're not exactly complicated products.
Taiwan, which had early cases, dealt with the disease superbly without closing all "nonessential businesses". Solution: face masks, extensive testing / case tracking, smartphone apps / data collection, strict workplace hygeine measures and closing any which can't or won't comply, etc.
South Korea, which had early cases, also dealt with the disease superbly without closing all "nonessential businesses". Solution: face masks, extensive testing / case tracking, smartphone apps / data collection, strict workplace hygeine measures and closing any which can't or won't comply, etc.
Singapore, which had early cases, also dealt with the disease superbly without closing all "nonessential businesses". Solution: face masks, extensive testing / case tracking, smartphone apps / data collection, strict workplace hygeine measures and closing any which can't or won't comply, etc.
I'm noticing a trend here....
I live in Iceland which is one of the few European countries** doing the Asian model (apart from being late to the game, alongside everyone else in the west, with respect to masks - but doing an even more extensive testing job). We even just launched a national cell tracking app on Tuesday. But in liberal-democracy fashion, it's not a "dump all your info to a government database" app, but rather stores the past 14 days of GPS points / other people's phones detected by bluetooth on your phone, and if you're diagnosed, you can voluntarily choose to share your data (almost everyone would), which other people's apps can then download and compare to where they've been.
** - But then there's Sweden, also an exception in a different manner, whose model so far mostly seems to be, "Pandemic? What pandemic?" ;)
Re:Indeed! (Score:5, Informative)
As an example of connectivity: Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport alone normally handles 46 million passengers per year, and is the 11th busiest airport in the world by passenger traffic / 8th busiest by freight traffic. Just the one airport. The busiest airport in the US by contrast (JFK) is #19 in the world, at 33m passengers.
Re: (Score:2)
Surprise surprise. Taiwan is an island. The airport is the only way to travel to and from that place efficiently. Of course, the airport is going to be busy, just like London airports.
Re: (Score:2)
Surprise surprise. Taiwan is an island. The airport is the only way to travel to and from that place efficiently. Of course, the airport is going to be busy, just like London airports.
What on earth makes you think the busiest airports in the world cater to people travelling to a local country or local city. Those 46million passengers have nothing at all to do with visiting Taiwan. The airport is a major Asian hub airport.
Re:Indeed! (Score:5, Informative)
You're looking at total passenger traffic vs. the relevant number, international passenger traffic. [wikipedia.org]
To be fair, I did forget to include the word "international", even though I was quoting international figures.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Iceland is curious at any rate. How did you manage to get an incredibly high infection rate coupled with an incredibly low death toll? You have twice as many reported cases per million citizens than Italy but only about 5% of the deaths/million there.
Re:Indeed! (Score:5, Interesting)
It's not curious at all. We have an insanely high testing rate here. Highest in the world unless you count the Faroes as separate from Denmark. The more you test, the more mild or asymptomatic cases you find. Hence a lower CFR.
We also - unlikely the vast majority of countries - test people with no symptoms, to in effect random sample the population. The conclusion that even with our extensive testing regime, about 3x as many people have the disease as are caught through normal testing approaches. So the actual fatality rate is several times lower than that. In other countries, you can expect it to be 1-2 orders of magnitude more people infected than are formally diagnosed.
The disease is played out in Italy's red zone (other parts of Italy, however, likely still have more to go). The first antibody study was concluded in the red-zone town of Castiglione d'Adda, and found that 70% of people in the city now have antibodies to the disease (60% had thought they had never been infected). The reason Iceland doesn't have the mortality rate of Italy is simply that we're nowhere near as infected. Of course, how effectively we've flattened the curve means that there's still plenty more ahead. We haven't completed antibody studies yet, so we don't know what percentage of the population has ever been infected, but the random sampling studies show that we're holding steady at about 0,5% of the population having an active infection at any point in time.
Re:Indeed! (Score:4, Informative)
The main thing, BTW, that helped us quickly develop testing capacity was deCODE Genetics / Íslenska Erfðagreining. They exist to do whole-population genetic studies of Iceland, to help identify genetic risk factors for diseases, drug interactions, etc. They were repurposed for the fight against COVID-19.
Funnily enough, for a while, the main limitation to how many tests we could run had nothing to do with trained personnel, hardware, reagents, etc. It was, of all things, a shortage of swabs. Another company turned out to have 100k of a different type of swab in storage, but they failed in testing. The hospital's engineering department was working to find a way to repurpose them when they found a big box of proper swabs in storage that had been mislabeled, which allowed them to continue full-steam until the next shipment arrived. They're now opening new testing centres out in the smaller towns in the countryside.
Re:Indeed! (Score:5, Insightful)
Another neat thing we learned from the random sampling study: half of all new infections at present are now occurring in people who were already in preemptive quarantine. So we know that our case tracking and quarantine policy is having a big impact on the disease. That right there is halving of the disease's R0 - not counting all other anti-transmission measures we're taking.
It IMHO seems to be almost epidemiological malpractice that other countries aren't random sampling their population for the disease. I mean, I know that tests are in short supply most places, but at least allocate some fraction. If only for the reason that it also prevents you from getting undetected pockets that fester and grow for weeks or months until they become huge problems.
Re:Indeed! (Score:4, Insightful)
It IMHO seems to be almost epidemiological malpractice that other countries aren't random sampling their population for the disease.
What you call malpractice in your country is called Republican Party political interest in our country.
And you will shortly see a reply to this posting that it really is all Obama's fault.
Re: (Score:2)
it really is all Obama's fault
Damn straight! Everything is!
now what are we talking about?
Re: (Score:2)
That testing rate is in large part down to a private company that stepped in. It normally does large scale testing of the population (as I understand it, about 2/3 of Iceland's population already get tested by this company, which does biotech research).
So, the infrastructure for doing this was already in place (massive benefit, which few other countries have).
I suspect that existing relationship is part of the reason why medical ethics resistance was appeased, and the testing allowed to go ahead (plus the
Re: (Score:2)
Agreed with all of this. We were very fortunate to have deCODE. More countries should have such infrastructure in the future.
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, but one of the reasons that this database of population genetics has been pursued in Iceland is that it has a relatively small, extremely non-diverse population (it's possibly the country with the least diverse genetics in the world), making it easier to study the effects of genetic differences. Doing the same in other countries would be more difficult, and with results harder to ferret out.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
My impression is that climate, aka fresh air, not to humid, and pollution are an important factor.
I'm stuck in Karlsruhe/Germany at the moment. The air never makes an polluted impression, but now as mornin and evening traffic is basically down to 10% or less, the feels incredible clear and fresh.
Keep in mind that on Iceland only 450k people live, so cases per million is misleading. After all Iceland also has the most billionaires per million inhabitants on the world.
Re: (Score:2)
Only 364k actually :) But statistics is statistics, whether both the numerator and denominator are both large or both small.
Nah, only #10. #1 through #10 are, in order (# of billionaires in parentheses): Monaco (4), St. Kitts & Nevis (2), Liechtenstein (1), Guernsey (1), Hong Kong (67), Cyprus (6), Switzerland (36), Singapore (21), Sweden (31), and then Iceland (1). The US (585) is #13 (after Norway and Israel).
Re: (Score:2)
I'm using this list [wikipedia.org]. Which one are you using?
Please go back and re-read my actual words :)
Re: (Score:2)
"Saunas?"
Saunas help!
If you never come out.
Re: (Score:2)
Is Iceland's national genetic database helping?
Re: (Score:2)
The database itself isn't, but the company that made it (deCODE Genetics / Íslensk Erfðagreining) has been immensely helpful.
Re: (Score:2)
Singapore, which had early cases, also dealt with the disease superbly without closing all "nonessential businesses". Solution: face masks, extensive testing / case tracking, smartphone apps / data collection, strict workplace hygeine measures and closing any which can't or won't comply, etc.
Unfortunately, Singapore's measures has failed, and we are now closing all nonessential businesses.
It did hold back the tide of infections for 2 months, but various due to non-compliance and slowness to increase necessary measures, it became too much and the number of cases has started exploding over the past few days.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah no, you would NOT be OK with effectively a police state being implemented, and direct and total compliance with your governments orders. In fact, deplorables cheer on their disobedience of orders and are now routinely continuing to have religious congregations, which are the primary source of the outbreak in South Korea, surprise surprise. Fully expect the deplorable counties to be breeding grounds for this virus for a long time, probably need to quarantine them with arrest orders for anyone who violates it. That or the non deplorable zones need to setup checkpoints to screen.
Um, OK, I literally just said what I would be OK with. Guess I'm the expert on that, not you.
You do know that it's the "non deplorable" areas of the US that are having the biggest problems, right?
Re: (Score:2)
No, I do not know that.
I do know that rural areas already had more distancing than densely populated areas did, that when you are dealing with exponential growth the time since the first 100 or so infections in an area has a big impact on the rate of infections now, and that the sooner in that curve that effective isolation measures are put in place, the better off an area will be in terms of avoiding ov
Re: (Score:2)
I scratched my head at this. How can it be that Iceland is significantly more infected than Italy and Spain, after Rei repeatedly extolled the Icelandic approach?
That's a function of total tests done. Italy and Spain have a lot of undiscovered infections due to lack of testing. Which was already explained and in fact one of the central points in one of parents posts.
Re: (Score:2)
Yup, and if China had it's way, it would no longer be an independent island, with all the stuff talked about in this article no longer either existing, or existing in a severely degraded way. BTW Hawaii is also AN ISLAND. Hopefully similar results to Taiwan.
Re: (Score:2)
One of the things that masks differences between countries is population. All things being equal, you expect more cases in large countries than small, so you want to look at per capita figures.
Iceland is an island, but it has one of the highest per capita rates of COVID-19 in the world. However this is probably masked by the fact it's a quite advanced country; there are countries like Ecuador where there are dead bodies rotting in the streets but it's reporting only 196 cases/per million residents.
Maybe o
Re: (Score:2)
One thing I don't see mentioned is the fact Taiwan was already scanning incoming passengers because of the African Swine Fever that has swept across China. When I flew into Taipei last year, the lines were long and slow because of the checks.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:In Before... (Score:5, Insightful)
Back in January 20, when epidemic experts confirmed the new unknown virus can spread human to human,
Hong Kong citizens responded immediately. In 3 days, face mask and hand sanitizer all sold out. Roughly
the same time, over 90% people wear mask, that included the most stubborn senior citizens. And there
wasn't an outbreak in Hong Kong at the time.
Citizens responded to the experts, not the Government.
Re:In Before... (Score:4, Informative)
In the U.S., a sizable portion of the pop. believe the alleged administration is populated by experts. And these allege experts have been all over the map and through time in their opinions, which are then echoed for amplification by Fox, and then reabsorbed as facts by the alleged administration....mutually recursive bullshit.
And the one fellow in the alleged administration who knows what he's doing, Fauci, is getting right-wingnut blow back because he corrects Dear Leader. And do we hear Dear Leader spring to action to defend the one person the rest of the country has faith in? Nope, we get that horse's ass settling political scores from the self-generated enemies he's managed to conjure up.
Meanwhile, the states are left to do the real work of the fighting the epidemic.
Re: (Score:2)
over 90% people wear mask, that included the most stubborn senior citizens.
Chinese people and other asian people wear face masks since millennia when sick. It is part of the culture, sneezing or coughing without a mask is an insult no one wants to make to someone around him.
Re: (Score:2)
Citizens responded to the experts, not the Government.
In Europe many governments listened to their experts, and these experts were in too many cases flat out wrong. Experts were wrong not just once and at the onset of this, but many times over and for quite some time. Instead of listening to experts from China, Korea and Singapore, European experts brushed them aside and developed their own "interesting ideas". They actually warned against masks! In mid March some health experts claimed, that Covid-19 can not be spread in densely packed bars! Boris Johnson's "
Re: (Score:2)
We don't all live in the US. I live in another western nation which for entirely different reasons failed to address the situation appropriately.
Appropriately apparently being invasive hygiene measures the most obvious of which is masks.
Re: (Score:3)
Nope. The right has recently developed amnesia and is attempting to rewrite very recent history.
Correct. Here is one example [imgur.com], and here is another [9cache.com].
Re: (Score:2)
I think she might have been ripping it up less because of coronavirus specifically and more because of the rest of the content. But you could be right that she ripped it up because of coronavirus.
Re: (Score:2)
Eating at Chinese restaurants was no more of a problem than eating at any other restaurant. None of those were good suggestions, but many Republicans were making those types of suggestions as late as last week.
Trump essentially said "We've got it al
Re: (Score:2)
Protecting Americans’ health also means fighting infectious diseases. We are coordinating with the Chinese government and working closely together on the coronavirus outbreak in China. My administration will take all necessary steps to safeguard our citizens from this threat.
Current events prove this was indeed a lie
That was true, but unfortunately the government of the People's Republic of China wasn't truthful. That impacted in multiple respects important for understanding the disease and making suitable preparation in the limited time available.
States begging for ventilators.
States have a responsibility to make preparations for pandemics. The plans and preparations they make have consequences such as what we are seeing play out now.
In 2015 the state of New York determined that it needed 16,000 more ventilators in its stockpile for responding to
Re: (Score:2)
Pulling the office out of the NSC de-emphasizes them and downgrades their ability to get the attention of the White House at a time of burgeoning crisis.
Re: (Score:2)
Maybe you should re-read that. It didn't happen, they weren't pulled out of the NSC.
Media, Democrats Ran With False Claim Trump ‘Disbanded’ Pandemic Office [freebeacon.com]
"It has been alleged by multiple officials of the Obama administration, including in The Post, that the president and his then-national security adviser, John Bolton, ‘dissolved the office' at the White House in charge of pandemic preparedness," Morrison wrote. "Because I led the very directorate assigned that mission, the counterproliferation and biodefense office, for a year and then handed it off to another official who still holds the post, I know the charge is specious."
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Among those early decisive measures was the decision to ban travel from many parts of China, stop cruise ships docking at the island's ports, and introduce strict punishments for anyone found breaching home quarantine orders.
In other words, racist fascist authoritarianism. If this had happened in America, our media would have roasted our President on a stick for doing something like this.
They did... In January when Trump's first travel ban went into effect he was called reactionary and racist for the policy that slowed down the virus spread considerably. Even Joe Biden got in on the critisimums of Trump's policy on this... Of course, it was all political back then, just like it is now.
But hey, it's easy to just ignore what you don't want to see in history and fixate on what you do want to see, what advances your views and it doesn't matter what side of the political fence you are on.
As president Trump pointed out early in this fake outbreak, this is all a hoax that is funded by George Soros and carried out by Liberal Deep State Democrat crisis actors staging an elaborate deception: https://www.shopmascot.com/Gre... [shopmascot.com] But there is no reason to panic, the most stable genius in the universe is on the job and has this all under control.
Re: (Score:2)
As president Trump pointed out early in this fake outbreak, this is all a hoax that is funded by George Soros and carried out by Liberal Deep State Democrat crisis actors staging an elaborate deception: https://www.shopmascot.com/Gre... [shopmascot.com] But there is no reason to panic, the most stable genius in the universe is on the job and has this all under control.
That, of course, is a lie.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
~bobbied
Slowed the spread considerably...before asymptomatic transmission was acknowledged? When "droplets" and close contact (hand shakes) were promulgated as vectors? While the airline industry's thousands of aluminum tubes were the very contagion depositing Covid-19 to every nation with a landing strip-- When SHANGHAI BILL was on Slasdot arguing cross-transmission was "a wash" that didn't matter and modded to +5 for misinformation.
It's political now with your scatter shot talking points and agenda to poison th
Re: (Score:3)
Travel ban my ass: From Axios via the NYT: Trump's "ban" was imposed on Jan. 31.
" Details: 279 flights from China have arrived in the U.S. since Trump's travel restrictions were announced, "and screening procedures have been uneven," the Times notes."
Re:Translation (Score:4, Informative)
If memory serves, the Republicans in the Senate missing kicking out the ACA by 1 vote from McCain. Trump was livid because an adult called his bluff. That removal would have passed the House which the Republicans controlled at the time.
However, just to kick the little people a bit further in the ass, Trump supported states bring cases against the ACA, there's one before the Supreme Court right now. Also, Trump refused to allow open enrollment for the ACA plans to keep open for awhile now that the Sars-CoV-2 virus is rampaging. His administration is, however, advocating paying hospitals to care for poor people. This is sort of like telling the poor to go out back and he'll throw some used vegetables out the back door of the federal restaurant at them and then announcing he's a great humanitarian because of it.
Re: (Score:2)
or maybe throw some paper towels at them...
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Traditionally, the Chinese people travel around the new year, and millions of students and families where in transit through the fall and winter months of 2019.
~bobbied
Why are you here to suggest an extended period of yearly vacation time (approx. three weeks) in which the largest migration on Earth occurs (Last Train Home (2009) documentary), could possibly be 2 of 4 seasons a year? Or six months?
through the fall and winter
This year's New Year (a lunar calendar) was later than usual, not earlier.
Conversational usage: Follow me here...
Do you think anything you don't say?
Referencea single source before clack-clack-clack?
https://www.timeanddate.com/holidays/china/2019
Re: (Score:3)
I have been wondering this myself. Last November my wife was hospitalized with an "unknown viral pneumonia" after displaying what we know now as the Covid-19 set of symptoms. She emerged needing permanent oxygen, and still has a cough.
What did we do just before that? We visited Seattle, and from there cruised.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
If that were the case, then the virus would have behaved differently in Taiwan than it did everywhere else.
Everywhere else it has quickly grown to threaten hospital and ICU bed capacity, even when people knew it was coming. If Taiwan had this with nobody realizing it, we're still left with the question: how is Taiwan different?
Re: (Score:2)
But you will never convince people here about this, because they think life is a computer program and everything is correctly calculated and labelled.
You seem to be pretty accurately labelled troll most times...
Re: (Score:2)
The current test is for if you have the disease now. Antigen tests, to see if youever had it, will be on the market soon.
Re: (Score:2)
" likely correct in that the virus has probably been circulating for a lot longer than we think", based on what, precisely? Do you have a dyspeptic gut like Dear Leader?
Re: (Score:2)
the kind that for most intents does very little.
Probably not true. Shutdowns of non-essential services started about two weeks ago in many places, and right about now we're seeing those places begin to bend the curve -- Washington State especially, and even New York, although in absolute terms the situation there remains dire, and the case count is still growing everywhere.
Because the virus can have a long incubation period, you wouldn't expect to see a sudden end to case growth when restrictions are put in place. It'd take at least a week for the growth