Post by King_Gamecock on Jul 30, 2020 8:55:46 GMT -6
Hi guys. This is a post I made to Facebook regarding masks... I thought I would repost it here for those who might be interested...
This is getting so tiresome. The level of ignorance and propagation of false information and a narrative normally restricted to tinfoil hat wearing schizophrenics by normally intelligent people is baffling.
I live in Taiwan. This is not some cut and paste copypasta from a random internet troll. My wife, son, and myself - we live in The Republic of China R.O.C. aka Taiwan. We are 100 miles from Red China, and have roughly 800,000 people per month traveling between here and the mainland. According to Johns Hopkins, Taiwan was going to be devastated by Covid-19. They predicted us to be the 2nd worst hit country in the world. In addition to the massive travel due to the intertwined corporate relationships with China, we suffer from a huge population density issue. Consider that the population density of the city of Birmingham is 1619 per square mile. That is the largest city in Alabama. By comparison, the population density of the COUNTRY of Taiwan is 1739 - for the country. The city I live in is the 5th largest, and our population density is 11,000 per square mile. Taipei is double that. There are more people who live in the apartment complex across the street from my apartment than live in Cherokee County. We were supposed to be decimated...
only we weren't.
Why? Well, our government here did a great job at contact tracing. Schools shut down for an extra 2 weeks beyond the Chinese New Year break, and precautions were taken like checking temps before people were allowed to go into banks or hypermarkets (giant stores such as A-Mart, RT-Mart, or Carrefour, that are like Walmart Supercenters). Hand sanitizer was everywhere and everyone used it.
But the big thing was - masks. Everyone wore them. They were required by law for entering a post office or using public transit. The law really didn't matter though. Taiwanese people are very intelligent, and all of them put on a mask anyway. People here normally wear masks when they are sick - it is considered a courtesy. With the coronavirus outbreak, everyone put them on... and nobody got sick. There were cases early on. It happened... but then people put on masks and we halted the virus in its tracks. Now a lot can be argued that the government stopped the virus from getting in early on with swift and decisive action by a fantastic president (unlike what the US has), but what cannot be argued against is what happened back in April. You see, in April a naval ship docked in Taiwan that had recently been at an Island thought to be Covid-19 free. As it turned out, it wasn't. 27 infected sailors left the ship and traveled to 90 different places around Taiwan. During that time they contacted hundreds of people. That spread to thousands of contacts total. When the government did the contact tracing, they were unable to find ONE SINGLE PERSON who had contracted the virus from the sailors. Not ONE. Why? How? Masks. The sailors were wearing them, as were the general population.
It has now been almost 4 months since our last reported community spread case. The 11 active cases in Taiwan were all imported and caught at immigration. Next week our schools reopen for the fall. We never shut down. Our economy here remained open. We can go out to eat or to the mall or whatever, without fear of getting sick. The only thing we are missing is the ability to go see a new movie because Hollywood shut down. We still have to wear masks to use public transport, but many people don't wear them now during trips to the store or the mall or whatever. Last week was our 25th anniversary. I went to Pandora to get my wife a gift. I wore my mask at the mall. The saleswoman who helped me had a mask on, but there were some people who didn't.
When I was wearing a mask all the time, it was annoying, sure. I read comments from people in Alabama complaining about wearing a mask in the heat, but the heat in Alabama doesn't compare with East/Southeast Asia. The summertime temps here are always in the 90's+ and the humidity here is always in the 70+ range, even when the temps soar towards 100. Ask any Vietnam vet how the weather in Alabama compares with Asia. They will give you a very fast answer. Your discomfort is not a valid argument against masks.
I have more freedom than you do. There are no arguments about schools closing. No shutdowns. No economic collapse. Masks are a large part of why.
It could also be argued that Taiwan's superior healthcare system played a part in our success at beating Covid-19. Everyone is insured and the hospitals have cutting edge technology. Only 7 people died from the disease. The universal healthcare system here enabled the government to contact trace more effectively, and as 99% of people here have government health ID cards with the number being the same as the regular R.O.C. ID card, and it is linked to your passport, they could check to see who had traveled to hot spots and test them, but none of that explains the Naval incident in April.
So keep sticking your head in the sand and screaming about losing your freedom because of a silly mask. Meanwhile the USA burns with 70,000 new cases and 1000 deaths per day. Put on your tinfoil hat in case the government is using 5G to read your brainwaves and secretly infect you with Covid-19. Eventually you will shut down again and you can sit in your house and peek through the curtains looking for men in black trying to force people to wear masks.
Here in Taiwan our lives are normal. No one is sick. Thursday we are going to the new outlet mall in Taoyan and plan to check out the new Xpark aquarium...with no fear of Coronavirus. That is freedom. That is what masks do.
This is getting so tiresome. The level of ignorance and propagation of false information and a narrative normally restricted to tinfoil hat wearing schizophrenics by normally intelligent people is baffling.
I live in Taiwan. This is not some cut and paste copypasta from a random internet troll. My wife, son, and myself - we live in The Republic of China R.O.C. aka Taiwan. We are 100 miles from Red China, and have roughly 800,000 people per month traveling between here and the mainland. According to Johns Hopkins, Taiwan was going to be devastated by Covid-19. They predicted us to be the 2nd worst hit country in the world. In addition to the massive travel due to the intertwined corporate relationships with China, we suffer from a huge population density issue. Consider that the population density of the city of Birmingham is 1619 per square mile. That is the largest city in Alabama. By comparison, the population density of the COUNTRY of Taiwan is 1739 - for the country. The city I live in is the 5th largest, and our population density is 11,000 per square mile. Taipei is double that. There are more people who live in the apartment complex across the street from my apartment than live in Cherokee County. We were supposed to be decimated...
only we weren't.
Why? Well, our government here did a great job at contact tracing. Schools shut down for an extra 2 weeks beyond the Chinese New Year break, and precautions were taken like checking temps before people were allowed to go into banks or hypermarkets (giant stores such as A-Mart, RT-Mart, or Carrefour, that are like Walmart Supercenters). Hand sanitizer was everywhere and everyone used it.
But the big thing was - masks. Everyone wore them. They were required by law for entering a post office or using public transit. The law really didn't matter though. Taiwanese people are very intelligent, and all of them put on a mask anyway. People here normally wear masks when they are sick - it is considered a courtesy. With the coronavirus outbreak, everyone put them on... and nobody got sick. There were cases early on. It happened... but then people put on masks and we halted the virus in its tracks. Now a lot can be argued that the government stopped the virus from getting in early on with swift and decisive action by a fantastic president (unlike what the US has), but what cannot be argued against is what happened back in April. You see, in April a naval ship docked in Taiwan that had recently been at an Island thought to be Covid-19 free. As it turned out, it wasn't. 27 infected sailors left the ship and traveled to 90 different places around Taiwan. During that time they contacted hundreds of people. That spread to thousands of contacts total. When the government did the contact tracing, they were unable to find ONE SINGLE PERSON who had contracted the virus from the sailors. Not ONE. Why? How? Masks. The sailors were wearing them, as were the general population.
It has now been almost 4 months since our last reported community spread case. The 11 active cases in Taiwan were all imported and caught at immigration. Next week our schools reopen for the fall. We never shut down. Our economy here remained open. We can go out to eat or to the mall or whatever, without fear of getting sick. The only thing we are missing is the ability to go see a new movie because Hollywood shut down. We still have to wear masks to use public transport, but many people don't wear them now during trips to the store or the mall or whatever. Last week was our 25th anniversary. I went to Pandora to get my wife a gift. I wore my mask at the mall. The saleswoman who helped me had a mask on, but there were some people who didn't.
When I was wearing a mask all the time, it was annoying, sure. I read comments from people in Alabama complaining about wearing a mask in the heat, but the heat in Alabama doesn't compare with East/Southeast Asia. The summertime temps here are always in the 90's+ and the humidity here is always in the 70+ range, even when the temps soar towards 100. Ask any Vietnam vet how the weather in Alabama compares with Asia. They will give you a very fast answer. Your discomfort is not a valid argument against masks.
I have more freedom than you do. There are no arguments about schools closing. No shutdowns. No economic collapse. Masks are a large part of why.
It could also be argued that Taiwan's superior healthcare system played a part in our success at beating Covid-19. Everyone is insured and the hospitals have cutting edge technology. Only 7 people died from the disease. The universal healthcare system here enabled the government to contact trace more effectively, and as 99% of people here have government health ID cards with the number being the same as the regular R.O.C. ID card, and it is linked to your passport, they could check to see who had traveled to hot spots and test them, but none of that explains the Naval incident in April.
So keep sticking your head in the sand and screaming about losing your freedom because of a silly mask. Meanwhile the USA burns with 70,000 new cases and 1000 deaths per day. Put on your tinfoil hat in case the government is using 5G to read your brainwaves and secretly infect you with Covid-19. Eventually you will shut down again and you can sit in your house and peek through the curtains looking for men in black trying to force people to wear masks.
Here in Taiwan our lives are normal. No one is sick. Thursday we are going to the new outlet mall in Taoyan and plan to check out the new Xpark aquarium...with no fear of Coronavirus. That is freedom. That is what masks do.
