Taiwan Outbreak Shows How Seriously They Take the Pandemic
Its health minister has said "we are in critical condition now, and this is not a joke." The CNN story has a picture of two guys in hazmat suits sitting in the back of a truck, going down the street spraying disinfectant in the air. There is another picture showing bare shelves in stores where toilet paper should be.
This struck me as mighty strange, given that Taiwan has been a model of pandemic management. They nipped the infection curve in the bud about a year ago. I remember seeing pictures last summer of Taiwanese attending a soccer match with full stands.
So I decided to have a look at the infection rates, and compare them to the U.S. and other countries in that region using the right numbers. Here is a chart from Our World in Data:
To be fair, their rate one week earlier was 0.34, so they have had a 14x increase. They are mandating masks, limiting gatherings, and closing businesses and schools.
But here the rate is almost 20x higher, and we are rushing to remove restrictions. It just goes to show the difference in attitude toward the pandemic between here and there.
One important difference though, and perhaps why they are right to be worried, is their abysmal vaccination rate. Taiwan has administered at least one shot to only 0.14% of their population. That is much lower than in Japan, which as reported here is doing badly on the vaccination front. In the U.S. the figure is close to 50%.
Still if the US had assumed a more Taiwan-like attitude a year ago we probably would not have over a half-million people dead at this point. But of course the COVIDiots wouldn't allow that.
