brad465
Established Member
In recent weeks/months, a number of countries in East Asia who were widely praised for their pandemic responses that kept a lid on infections without lockdowns, are now experiencing surges that relatively speaking are of concern to them and puts their whole approaches in doubt. The four that stand out are Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and Vietnam:
Japan's situation has of course fuelled calls to cancel the already postponed Olympics, while the graph of Taiwan in particular looks particularly striking. I expect as a result many of those who were using these countries to explain why we should have gone for a zero covid strategy will fall silent as a result. That said, the BBC do have an article from a day ago about Taiwan:
I don't have anything against these countries' people, but I think in essence their latest troubles with covid show that even with the best strategy available, we can't beat nature at its own game and eventually nature will win.
(Some circles suggest Singapore is also having problems now, but this isn't showing up on graphs I think as much as the other 4)
Japan's situation has of course fuelled calls to cancel the already postponed Olympics, while the graph of Taiwan in particular looks particularly striking. I expect as a result many of those who were using these countries to explain why we should have gone for a zero covid strategy will fall silent as a result. That said, the BBC do have an article from a day ago about Taiwan:
Covid-19: What went wrong in Singapore and Taiwan?
They were once hailed as success stories, but both places are now seeing a steep rise in virus cases.
www.bbc.co.uk
They've been hailed as virus success stories - places that have seen virtually zero or single-digit Covid cases since the start of the year.
But this month, Singapore and Taiwan have both seen a sudden and aggressive rise in cases - with Singapore logging 248 new cases just last week, and Taiwan 1,200 local infections.
Both places have gone into a heightened state of restrictions, limiting the size of social gatherings and closing schools.
By global standards, these numbers may seem small - but for these places, these figures would have been unthinkable just months ago. So what exactly went wrong?
A tale of complacency: Taiwan
Taiwan was among the first places to ban foreign visitors almost as soon as China reported the emergence of the virus - and these tough border restrictions still remain in place.
Locally however, the population started to become complacent - as did its government.
Hospitals stopped aggressively testing people for Covid, even those with a fever - a common symptom of the virus, according to Associate Professor Lin Hsien-ho of the National Taiwan University.
According to online publication Our World in Data, Taiwan was administering just 0.57 virus tests per 1,000 people in mid-Feb. This compared to Singapore's rate of 6.21 and the UK's rate of 8.68 at around the same period.
"There was a general assumption even with people showing symptoms that the probability of having Covid-19 was essentially zero," Dr Lin told the BBC, adding that it stemmed from a belief that the virus could not break through Taiwan's strong borders.
"Doctors were not taking it seriously, hospitals were not alert, they were not doing a lot of contact tracing. There was definitely a certain sense of complacency."
This was especially highlighted when Taiwan relaxed its quarantine requirements for non-vaccinated airline pilots from an initial 14-day period, to five days - and then, just three days.
Shortly afterwards, a cluster broke out connected to a handful of China Airlines pilots who had been staying at a Novotel near Taoyuan Airport. Many of those linked to this cluster were later found to have contracted the UK variant, known as B.1.1.7.
The virus then spread through the community, eventually making its way to Taiwan's "tea houses" - adult entertainment venues.
I don't have anything against these countries' people, but I think in essence their latest troubles with covid show that even with the best strategy available, we can't beat nature at its own game and eventually nature will win.
(Some circles suggest Singapore is also having problems now, but this isn't showing up on graphs I think as much as the other 4)
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