[ExI] Taiwan is standing strong

[Stuart LaForge]

Quoting Ben Zaiboc:

> Until a vaccine becomes available, the only thing you can do is make
> sure your background health is as high as possible, and don't do
> anything that could weaken your immune system. If you don't have to
> travel, don't. If you don't have to socialise, don't. Maybe that can
> slow the spread down enough to allow time for a vaccine to be developed
> and made widely available. But I fully expect that we're all going to
> get the virus. We can thank Darwin that the fatality rate isn't higher.
> We might not be so lucky next time.
>
> Prove me wrong, please, somebody?

We could follow Taiwan's lead. Taiwan is an island right off the coast  
of China with 23 million inhabitants many of whom work on the  
mainland. Despite their proximity and population density, they only  
have 50 cases of COVID-19 and 1 death. Yes, they were on top of the  
epidemic from the very beginning but also of note, the government  
foresaw the shortage of surgical masks so the government took over  
production of surgical masks. Note that in the picture everyone is  
wearing them going about their daily business. If everybody healthy or  
sick wore a mask all the time in public, the virus would not be able  
to spread. Let that sink in: only 49 infected out of 23 million people  
with the Chinese government cyber-attacking them the WHOLE time. We  
can beat this virus if we stop panicking and just start fighting the  
virus instead of fighting each other over asinine politics; blaming  
this political party or that for something that nature did.

https://abcnews.go.com/Health/taiwan-sets-world-fight-coronavirus/story?id=69552462

Excerpt:
-------------------
Frequent, transparent communication
Beyond daily press briefings, top government health officials,  
including the minister of Health, the vice president and a prominent  
epidemiologist, regularly gave public service announcements about  
travel, personal hygiene recommendations and dangers of stockpiling  
masks -- all accessible online.

Both public and private sectors are cooperating with government  
recommendations, which has proved crucial in the nation's containment  
efforts. Virtually every mall, store, restaurant and offices offered  
hand sanitizers and screen people's temperature before entering the  
building.

In addition, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has actively sought out  
and fought misinformation from both the news media and Chinese cyber  
attacks.

Resource allocations
"The government stopped exporting and started producing," Wang said.  
The government began allocating funds and military personnel to expand  
its capacity of production.

By late January, Taiwan had a stockpile of 44 million surgical masks,  
1.9 million N95 masks and 1,100 negative pressure isolation rooms.

Masks have always been considered courteous and are used regularly as  
a protective measure in Asian countries, like Taiwan. But during this  
public health emergency, demand for face masks has soared. In order to  
meet the growing demand, the government has taken over production. On  
Tuesday, President Tsai Ing Wen announced that they are now able to  
produce up to 10 million masks a day.