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Copy Taiwan. No country has been dealing better with Covid than Taiwan. No lockdown, and > 200 days without new Covid case [1]. Taipei had daily direct flight

Copy Taiwan. No country has been dealing better with Covid than Taiwan. No lockdown, and > 200 days without new Covid case [1]. Taipei had daily direct flights from Wuhan, and the Diamond Princess mooring near Taipei. They told the world early on [2] how they did it. Summary: Border closure, contract tracing, testing and controlled quarantine for those testing positive. It's worth reading [2] to realise how swiftly, decisively and rationally Taiwan reacted, and compare it with other countries. It probably helped having had an epidemiologist as vice-president [3]. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/oct/29/taiwan-domestic-covid-19-infection https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/oct/29/taiwan-domesti... [2] C. Y. Wang, C. Y. Ng, R. H. Brook, Response to COVID-19 in Taiwan: Big Data Analytics, New Technology, and Proactive Testing, https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2762689 https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2762689 [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chen_Chien-jen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chen_Chien-jen

nickthemagicman 6y ago
So essentially big brother the country for a disease where the average case fatality is a person who is 80 years old with 2 co-morbidities. Where under 55 years old age group (80% of the population) had more deaths by car accident than Covid deaths. Doesn't sound rational to me.
- sharken 6y ago
  Or acceptable in the free world, fact is that the virus has only successfully been contained in big brother countries and island states. The rest of the world can not (and should not) try to replicate the same behaviour.
  - GregarianChild 6y ago
    What do you find objectionable about Taiwan's Covid response, taking into account its success, not to mention the cost (in a general sense) of quarantining whole countries (which means restricting the freedom of millions of health citizens), and then not being successful, unlike Taiwan? In 2020, my mother (and millions of other citizens) spent more time at home quarantined than she would have spent in prison, had she committed a serious crime (other than extremely serious stuff like murder) as a first-time offender. Had the quarantine been as successful as Taiwan's policy ...
    - nickthemagicman 6y ago
      She would have had her information stored in a database at all times along with the rest of us. She would have been tracked and monitored everywhere she went. She would have undergone an inspection anytime she went anywhere. Your mom's quarantine is fine by me if it means the 80% of the population who are under 55 can live their lives.
    - zajio1am 6y ago
      Taiwan (and some other countries) used phone surveillance location-tracking to enforce quarantines: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-taiwan-surveillanc-idUSKBN2170SK https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-taiwan... That is like using ankle bracelets for tracking people under quarantine, just worse.
      - damnyou 6y ago
        My understanding is that people were given the choice of either quarantining in a government facility without phone tracking, or using the app. That seems more than reasonable to me.
      - dragonwriter 6y ago
        > That is like using ankle bracelets for tracking people under quarantine, just worse. To the extent mandatory quarantines are justifiable, this method of enforcement seems reasonable and minimally invasive given the purpose. I don't see why it's worse than ankle bracelets.
        sokoloff 6y ago
        Mandatory quarantines of those with a positive test result seems perfectly reasonable. Mandatory quarantines and/or continuous location monitoring of what should be free citizens does not strike me as in any way reasonable.
        panda88888 6y ago
starkd 6y ago
that's because it's an island. All the islands are doing better than whole continents. You can't contain it unless you go full bore like the chinese - locking people into their homes.
- GregarianChild 6y ago
  The UK is no island?
  - rualca 6y ago
    > The UK is no island? An island that has high-speed railway connections to Europe is not exactly isolated from the world, not to mention it's ferry connections with multiple neighboring countries in mainland Europe. Additionally, Great Britain has about 3 times the population of Taiwan, and it's urban centers have between 5 and 7x the population of Taiwan's largest urban centers.
    - michaelt 6y ago
      Sure, but all the points of entry to Britain have border controls. If the government ordered the channel tunnel to stop, it would stop. It's not like France, where there are innumerable border crossing points. Of course a total closure would be a last resort, because that would cut off imports of things like fresh fruit, but it's been possible to get 20-minute pinprick blood tests since April (admittedly with lower accuracy than PCR tests) - the government simply decided measures like testing everyone at the border and enforcing mandatory self-isolation were not priorities.
      - stordoff 6y ago
        > If the government ordered the channel tunnel to stop, it would stop. [...] Of course a total closure would be a last resort, because that would cut off imports of things like fresh fruit As demonstrated by the recent French closure: > French President Emmanuel Macron went further Sunday, with France barring UK travelers and shutting down the Eurotunnel crossing for at least 48 hours, meaning thousands of trucks carrying goods to the continent will not be able to cross the English Channel. https://www.businessinsider.com/uk-border-chaos-after-france-closes-eurotunnel-bans-lorries-for-forty-eight-hours-2020-12 https://www.businessinsider.com/uk-border-chaos-after-france... You now require a negative test (PCR or antigen) within the last 7 3 hours, and must be within a permitted category of traveller - https://uk.ambafrance.org/France-to-admit-some-travellers-from-UK-following-suspension https://uk.ambafrance.org/France-to-admit-some-travellers-fr...
xg15 6y ago
This probably would have been good advice in late summer or early fall when contact tracing was still possible. However now there seem to be so many diffuse infection events and undetected chains that the question is more about how to regain control. I'm not sure how this is achievable without contact restrictions.
- m_mueller 6y ago
  One way to regain control is to mass produce cheap rapid test kits, do a couple of mass testing events where significant percentage of population is tested to identify all clusters, isolate and trace from there. See Slovakia as an example.
GuB-42 6y ago
I often see "copy this country" but often, it is simply not possible, policies are usually a result of each country specificities more than the other way around. For Taiwan. - It is an island - It has an effective, well centralized surveillance network - It has (presumably) an obedient population, or at least, one that don't think personal freedom includes the right to spread the disease - They were well prepared thanks to the their experience with SARS - A good enough welfare system to allow people to quarantine without starving or getting ruined - A good enough police force to make sure they stay quarantined - Enough masks and hand sanitizer, with domestic production This is pretty much the opposite of the US. Which is highly connected, with a loosely connected government that has little control over the private sector that runs the country and a highly individualistic population. Also, maybe there are some populations that just do better for a mix of reasons: climate, race (genetics), culture, average age, health and population density,... Final note: closing borders is only effective if you contained the epidemic and others didn't.
- anonymoushn 6y ago
  Sure, then copy Vietnam or Australia.
  - dageshi 6y ago
    How do you copy being an Island? How do you go back in time and get your population used to wearing masks (and having supply) at the beginning of the pandemic when it really matters?
    - mirko22 6y ago
      For start by telling then they should wear it at the beginning, cos you seem to forget WHO suggested not to.... Then you lose confidence and that's it...
- incrudible 6y ago
  Consider the countries like Japan that do not actually have excess mortality despite COVID-19. Suppose they just stopped testing for it. You would not be able to tell the difference. You could then come up with any reason for this “huge success”.
turing_complete 6y ago
It's just insane how incompetent European and American governments have been in this pandemic compared to East-Asian countries. We are lucky to have some functional private institutions that bailed us out -- kept the countries running and developed a highly effective vaccine super fast.
- tchalla 6y ago
  Moderna has received a lot of government funding despite not ever making a profit as a private institution.
  - ethbr0 6y ago
    https://www.axios.com/moderna-barda-coronavirus-funding-disclosure-2775a517-a775-485a-a509-b6906c8535a9.html https://www.axios.com/moderna-barda-coronavirus-funding-disc...
    - tchalla 6y ago
      Moderna has received many grants from the government even before their Covid play.
      - ethbr0 6y ago
        Yes, e.g. the DARPA ADEPT program in 2011, as part of the P3 effort in response to H1N1. (More details might help your points)

nickthemagicman 6y ago

So essentially big brother the country for a disease where the average case fatality is a person who is 80 years old with 2 co-morbidities. Where under 55 years old age group (80% of the population) had more deaths by car accident than Covid deaths. Doesn't sound rational to me.

sharken 6y ago
Or acceptable in the free world, fact is that the virus has only successfully been contained in big brother countries and island states. The rest of the world can not (and should not) try to replicate the same behaviour.
- GregarianChild 6y ago
  What do you find objectionable about Taiwan's Covid response, taking into account its success, not to mention the cost (in a general sense) of quarantining whole countries (which means restricting the freedom of millions of health citizens), and then not being successful, unlike Taiwan? In 2020, my mother (and millions of other citizens) spent more time at home quarantined than she would have spent in prison, had she committed a serious crime (other than extremely serious stuff like murder) as a first-time offender. Had the quarantine been as successful as Taiwan's policy ...
  - nickthemagicman 6y ago
    She would have had her information stored in a database at all times along with the rest of us. She would have been tracked and monitored everywhere she went. She would have undergone an inspection anytime she went anywhere. Your mom's quarantine is fine by me if it means the 80% of the population who are under 55 can live their lives.
  - zajio1am 6y ago
    Taiwan (and some other countries) used phone surveillance location-tracking to enforce quarantines: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-taiwan-surveillanc-idUSKBN2170SK https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-taiwan... That is like using ankle bracelets for tracking people under quarantine, just worse.
    - damnyou 6y ago
      My understanding is that people were given the choice of either quarantining in a government facility without phone tracking, or using the app. That seems more than reasonable to me.
    - dragonwriter 6y ago
      > That is like using ankle bracelets for tracking people under quarantine, just worse. To the extent mandatory quarantines are justifiable, this method of enforcement seems reasonable and minimally invasive given the purpose. I don't see why it's worse than ankle bracelets.
      - sokoloff 6y ago
        Mandatory quarantines of those with a positive test result seems perfectly reasonable. Mandatory quarantines and/or continuous location monitoring of what should be free citizens does not strike me as in any way reasonable.
        panda88888 6y ago

starkd 6y ago

that's because it's an island. All the islands are doing better than whole continents. You can't contain it unless you go full bore like the chinese - locking people into their homes.

GregarianChild 6y ago
The UK is no island?
- rualca 6y ago
  > The UK is no island? An island that has high-speed railway connections to Europe is not exactly isolated from the world, not to mention it's ferry connections with multiple neighboring countries in mainland Europe. Additionally, Great Britain has about 3 times the population of Taiwan, and it's urban centers have between 5 and 7x the population of Taiwan's largest urban centers.
  - michaelt 6y ago
    Sure, but all the points of entry to Britain have border controls. If the government ordered the channel tunnel to stop, it would stop. It's not like France, where there are innumerable border crossing points. Of course a total closure would be a last resort, because that would cut off imports of things like fresh fruit, but it's been possible to get 20-minute pinprick blood tests since April (admittedly with lower accuracy than PCR tests) - the government simply decided measures like testing everyone at the border and enforcing mandatory self-isolation were not priorities.
    - stordoff 6y ago
      > If the government ordered the channel tunnel to stop, it would stop. [...] Of course a total closure would be a last resort, because that would cut off imports of things like fresh fruit As demonstrated by the recent French closure: > French President Emmanuel Macron went further Sunday, with France barring UK travelers and shutting down the Eurotunnel crossing for at least 48 hours, meaning thousands of trucks carrying goods to the continent will not be able to cross the English Channel. https://www.businessinsider.com/uk-border-chaos-after-france-closes-eurotunnel-bans-lorries-for-forty-eight-hours-2020-12 https://www.businessinsider.com/uk-border-chaos-after-france... You now require a negative test (PCR or antigen) within the last 7 3 hours, and must be within a permitted category of traveller - https://uk.ambafrance.org/France-to-admit-some-travellers-from-UK-following-suspension https://uk.ambafrance.org/France-to-admit-some-travellers-fr...

xg15 6y ago

This probably would have been good advice in late summer or early fall when contact tracing was still possible. However now there seem to be so many diffuse infection events and undetected chains that the question is more about how to regain control. I'm not sure how this is achievable without contact restrictions.

m_mueller 6y ago
One way to regain control is to mass produce cheap rapid test kits, do a couple of mass testing events where significant percentage of population is tested to identify all clusters, isolate and trace from there. See Slovakia as an example.

GuB-42 6y ago

I often see "copy this country" but often, it is simply not possible, policies are usually a result of each country specificities more than the other way around. For Taiwan. - It is an island - It has an effective, well centralized surveillance network - It has (presumably) an obedient population, or at least, one that don't think personal freedom includes the right to spread the disease - They were well prepared thanks to the their experience with SARS - A good enough welfare system to allow people to quarantine without starving or getting ruined - A good enough police force to make sure they stay quarantined - Enough masks and hand sanitizer, with domestic production This is pretty much the opposite of the US. Which is highly connected, with a loosely connected government that has little control over the private sector that runs the country and a highly individualistic population. Also, maybe there are some populations that just do better for a mix of reasons: climate, race (genetics), culture, average age, health and population density,... Final note: closing borders is only effective if you contained the epidemic and others didn't.

anonymoushn 6y ago
Sure, then copy Vietnam or Australia.
- dageshi 6y ago
  How do you copy being an Island? How do you go back in time and get your population used to wearing masks (and having supply) at the beginning of the pandemic when it really matters?
  - mirko22 6y ago
    For start by telling then they should wear it at the beginning, cos you seem to forget WHO suggested not to.... Then you lose confidence and that's it...
incrudible 6y ago
Consider the countries like Japan that do not actually have excess mortality despite COVID-19. Suppose they just stopped testing for it. You would not be able to tell the difference. You could then come up with any reason for this “huge success”.

turing_complete 6y ago

It's just insane how incompetent European and American governments have been in this pandemic compared to East-Asian countries. We are lucky to have some functional private institutions that bailed us out -- kept the countries running and developed a highly effective vaccine super fast.

tchalla 6y ago
Moderna has received a lot of government funding despite not ever making a profit as a private institution.
- ethbr0 6y ago
  https://www.axios.com/moderna-barda-coronavirus-funding-disclosure-2775a517-a775-485a-a509-b6906c8535a9.html https://www.axios.com/moderna-barda-coronavirus-funding-disc...
  - tchalla 6y ago
    Moderna has received many grants from the government even before their Covid play.
    - ethbr0 6y ago
      Yes, e.g. the DARPA ADEPT program in 2011, as part of the P3 effort in response to H1N1. (More details might help your points)