Sounds like you really have an axe to grind all over this thread. I dare venture that you haven't been following the situation here that closely either. I'm in

Sounds like you really have an axe to grind all over this thread. I dare venture that you haven't been following the situation here that closely either. I'm in Taipei right now and have lived here for almost the entire pandemic. The "mass outbreak" was 13k new cases today. The cases are ramping up but hospitalizations and deaths are not. Everyone knows that omicron is not serious, and by all indications, the government is cautiously letting it rip this time. Yesterday they ended the QR code program. They've been continuously reducing quarantine for 'close contacts' of confirmed cases. It's down to 3 days at home quarantine, and then 4 days of self health management, during which you aren't supposed to go to the mall or things like that, but can still go to work. They've also reduced the number of contacts that they trace and which criteria qualify as "close contact." For two years while most of the rest of the world was in turmoil, life was almost normal here. I still went to the gym, went to restaurants, worked in an office, positive GDP growth. Things just carried on, and without a massive body count. And now, that's it's basically a cold, the population is mostly vaccinated, and there is no hope of ever maintaining "COVID-zero" the government is slowly easing restrictions without overloading the health system. Taiwan's COVID response should be hailed as genius, yet you still have blowhards that feel like they were right all along.