4 ms·

This is a 24 minute Planet Money podcast named Fork the Government but the HN title has been changed to match the title in the HTML header. The show interviews

This is a 24 minute Planet Money podcast named Fork the Government but the HN title has been changed to match the title in the HTML header. The show interviews two civic hackers [1] Howard Wu and Audrey Tang (Taiwan's Digital Minister) about the technical aspects of Taiwan's coronavirus response. Taiwan has had a total of 815 cases and 7 deaths [2] in a population of 23 million. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civic_technology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civic_technology [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_pandemic_in_Taiwan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_pandemic_in_Taiwan

timr 6y ago
> Taiwan has had a total of 815 cases and 7 deaths [2] in a population of 23 million. They also closed their borders to China in January, and in March to the rest of the world. The US, by comparison, has had 7.2M international arrivals in 2020 -- and that's just non-citizens: https://www.trade.gov/visitor-arrivals-program-i-94-data https://www.trade.gov/visitor-arrivals-program-i-94-data Point being: it's easy to overstate the importance of measures like these. If you had to draw one bright-line difference between Taiwan's response, and the response of ~most other nations, it's that they closed their borders early and kept them closed.
- sradman 6y ago
  They also carefully managed the quarantine of the first set of returning travellers. They were sent home with a kit that included a thermometer and a set of surgical masks to use and public health officials contacted them daily via SMS and/or voice.
  - timr 6y ago
    Yes, they are strict about their quarantine. It's much easier to do that when you don't have to quarantine millions of people. Consider that we know that the virus was spreading in the US in January (via Europe), and there's phylogenetic and blood-screening evidence that it was here as early as late 2019. Even the strictest quarantine wouldn't have helped much at that point.
    - m_mueller 6y ago
      You would not have to quarantine millions if governments had acted decisively like Taiwan. I think Taiwan shows the endgame, how to eradicate. For an idea in how to deal with mass community spread, listen to Michael Mina.
      - timr 6y ago
        Taiwan has not eradicated the virus. Their quarantine systems are good, but not perfect: https://thediplomat.com/2021/01/taiwan-tightens-pandemic-measures-after-first-local-covid-19-case-since-april/ https://thediplomat.com/2021/01/taiwan-tightens-pandemic-mea... While they have certainly come closer than most places, the downside of this approach is that it comes at a debilitating economic cost (edit: for most countries...Taiwan specifically may be able to get away with it for a while because they're a manufacturing hub), and literally any minor slip up can lead to the virus spreading like wildfire through the population. Again, considering the vast differences in scale and complexity here, it's pushing the bounds of credulity to claim that the United States could do something similar. Even a "science-following" state like New York can't conduct a quarantine of remotely similar strictness. Pretty much the only equivalent thing the US might have done would be to stop all immigration in January. Neither political party would have supported such a thing.
        m_mueller 6y ago
        > debilitating economic cost citation needed. Their internal economy works normally, they never had any lockdown. Far lower impact than those states that just let the virus go rampant every couple of months, followed by months of lockdown. And yes, you could eradicate with this strategy, if enough places would adopt it and work together. I'd imagine a list of trusted covid free countries that can reintroduce bilateral travel without quarantine.
        timr 6y ago
        > they never had any lockdown ...and that's largely irrelevant in a tiny country whose economy is mostly making stuff for the west. As I said, they've stopped essentially all international travel. They've benefitted from the US-China trade war, and have been able to boost exports: https://www.wsj.com/articles/taiwan-shrugs-off-pandemic-to-deliver-surprise-growth-11604063439 https://www.wsj.com/articles/taiwan-shrugs-off-pandemic-to-d... > Taiwanese manufacturers have been relocating back home from China over the last two years, lured by subsidies and hoping to dodge tariffs and other complications from U.S.-China tensions over trade and technology. The resulting boost to production capacity has put Taiwan in a good position to meet voracious demand for electronics as work-from-home professionals place orders for additional computers, monitors and smartphones, analysts said. > Domestic consumption was still holding back the island’s economy in the third quarter, but much less than before. Private consumption contracted 1.5% from a year earlier in the third quarter, compared with a slump of nearly 5% in the previous quarter, according to the statistics bureau. My point was that if you do the same thing in the US, it would be a debilitating economic cost. > And yes, you could eradicate with this strategy, if enough places would adopt it and work together. And if ifs and buts were candy and nuts, we'd all have a very merry Christmas. String enough speculative hypotheticals together, and you can justify anything. Again, very few countries can adopt such a strategy. It's a strategy that works...tenuously...for an island country with the population of a single US state, who can afford to be isolated from the world for a year or more. Hawaii tried the same approach, and it nearly bankrupted them in a few months: https://www.npr.org/2020/10/20/925795410/facing-economic-devastation-hawaii-attempts-to-revive-tourism https://www.npr.org/2020/10/20/925795410/facing-economic-dev...
  - closeparen 6y ago
    Assuming they could have their own bathroom in a sequestered area of the home. Otherwise required to stay in a hotel room.

timr 6y ago

> Taiwan has had a total of 815 cases and 7 deaths [2] in a population of 23 million. They also closed their borders to China in January, and in March to the rest of the world. The US, by comparison, has had 7.2M international arrivals in 2020 -- and that's just non-citizens: https://www.trade.gov/visitor-arrivals-program-i-94-data https://www.trade.gov/visitor-arrivals-program-i-94-data Point being: it's easy to overstate the importance of measures like these. If you had to draw one bright-line difference between Taiwan's response, and the response of ~most other nations, it's that they closed their borders early and kept them closed.

sradman 6y ago
They also carefully managed the quarantine of the first set of returning travellers. They were sent home with a kit that included a thermometer and a set of surgical masks to use and public health officials contacted them daily via SMS and/or voice.
- timr 6y ago
  Yes, they are strict about their quarantine. It's much easier to do that when you don't have to quarantine millions of people. Consider that we know that the virus was spreading in the US in January (via Europe), and there's phylogenetic and blood-screening evidence that it was here as early as late 2019. Even the strictest quarantine wouldn't have helped much at that point.
  - m_mueller 6y ago
    You would not have to quarantine millions if governments had acted decisively like Taiwan. I think Taiwan shows the endgame, how to eradicate. For an idea in how to deal with mass community spread, listen to Michael Mina.
    - timr 6y ago
      Taiwan has not eradicated the virus. Their quarantine systems are good, but not perfect: https://thediplomat.com/2021/01/taiwan-tightens-pandemic-measures-after-first-local-covid-19-case-since-april/ https://thediplomat.com/2021/01/taiwan-tightens-pandemic-mea... While they have certainly come closer than most places, the downside of this approach is that it comes at a debilitating economic cost (edit: for most countries...Taiwan specifically may be able to get away with it for a while because they're a manufacturing hub), and literally any minor slip up can lead to the virus spreading like wildfire through the population. Again, considering the vast differences in scale and complexity here, it's pushing the bounds of credulity to claim that the United States could do something similar. Even a "science-following" state like New York can't conduct a quarantine of remotely similar strictness. Pretty much the only equivalent thing the US might have done would be to stop all immigration in January. Neither political party would have supported such a thing.
      - m_mueller 6y ago
        > debilitating economic cost citation needed. Their internal economy works normally, they never had any lockdown. Far lower impact than those states that just let the virus go rampant every couple of months, followed by months of lockdown. And yes, you could eradicate with this strategy, if enough places would adopt it and work together. I'd imagine a list of trusted covid free countries that can reintroduce bilateral travel without quarantine.
        timr 6y ago
        > they never had any lockdown ...and that's largely irrelevant in a tiny country whose economy is mostly making stuff for the west. As I said, they've stopped essentially all international travel. They've benefitted from the US-China trade war, and have been able to boost exports: https://www.wsj.com/articles/taiwan-shrugs-off-pandemic-to-deliver-surprise-growth-11604063439 https://www.wsj.com/articles/taiwan-shrugs-off-pandemic-to-d... > Taiwanese manufacturers have been relocating back home from China over the last two years, lured by subsidies and hoping to dodge tariffs and other complications from U.S.-China tensions over trade and technology. The resulting boost to production capacity has put Taiwan in a good position to meet voracious demand for electronics as work-from-home professionals place orders for additional computers, monitors and smartphones, analysts said. > Domestic consumption was still holding back the island’s economy in the third quarter, but much less than before. Private consumption contracted 1.5% from a year earlier in the third quarter, compared with a slump of nearly 5% in the previous quarter, according to the statistics bureau. My point was that if you do the same thing in the US, it would be a debilitating economic cost. > And yes, you could eradicate with this strategy, if enough places would adopt it and work together. And if ifs and buts were candy and nuts, we'd all have a very merry Christmas. String enough speculative hypotheticals together, and you can justify anything. Again, very few countries can adopt such a strategy. It's a strategy that works...tenuously...for an island country with the population of a single US state, who can afford to be isolated from the world for a year or more. Hawaii tried the same approach, and it nearly bankrupted them in a few months: https://www.npr.org/2020/10/20/925795410/facing-economic-devastation-hawaii-attempts-to-revive-tourism https://www.npr.org/2020/10/20/925795410/facing-economic-dev...
- closeparen 6y ago
  Assuming they could have their own bathroom in a sequestered area of the home. Otherwise required to stay in a hotel room.