If only Trump had followed Taiwan's lead in effective COVID response

Politics
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Taiwan never locked down, only briefly limited international travel, and had a reported COVID death rate that was roughly a factor of 10 lower than that of New Zealand a year into the pandemic. If the US had been as successful as Taiwan it would have eliminated over 99.9% of the reported deaths during Trump’s term of office.

How did Taiwan do so incredibly well while western countries were seeing massive epidemics in spite of extreme lockdowns and travel restrictions?

After over a year of brilliant success, Taiwan is recently experiencing its first serious outbreak. How is that possible?

Did people suddenly forget how to wear masks?

Taiwan COVID: 14,694 Cases and 635 Deaths - Worldometer (worldometers.info)

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They had militant testing and tracing early on and forced quarantines.

The recent outbreak is from the Delta + variant I believe.

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I agree that the new variant may be a big factor in the recent outbreak.

On the other hand, compared to the US they did almost zero testing through most of 2020:

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(From first link in OP.)

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When you yes and trace from the onset, and don’t have many cases there after, you don’t have to test a lot.

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Masks.

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What should Trump had done? Give me one example.

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also this.

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Perhaps the real question is whether Taiwan had herd immunity to the original COVID viruses.

It certainly appears that way, but how is that possible?

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I think it’s more a matter of what he shouldn’t have done.

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Also helps they essentially only have one border checkpoint they have to manage.

The article does make a good point about Taiwan being ignored by international organizations as a sop to China, however.

But much of what Taiwan did would not fly here.

This in a country where a large portion of people think masks are an authoritarian assault on liberty. :roll_eyes:

2 Likes
11

Good question. The problem is that the WHO and the Biden admin are too interested in sucking up to China to care about any real answers.

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Please. Do tell.

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shut down European travel.

Supported mask usage when the guidance changed.

Not shipped out defective test kits.

Supported test and tracing programs.

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14

The best thing he could have done was to stop downplaying COVID.

He would have won re-election in a walk had he simply done that.

3 Likes
15

Yes, I suspect the answer about Taiwan’s incredible COVID outcome is more about what scientists in Wuhan did than what the government of Taiwan did.

Of course any questions along these lines have been strictly forbidden in western media, but it looks like the politics are starting to change.

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Shouldn’t have had those big super-spreader rallies like the one that killed Herman Caine.

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I agree.

And from a purely political POV, it’s pretty incredible he didn’t see the potential there. I mean, here is a guy who sees the value of creating a ■■■■■■■■ lie based crisis, so he can rally the troops and capitalize on it.

If Covid he had an honest to god, packaged and ready crisis. Why he didn’t just seize the day…

I think the answer is, he has. lizard brain. and once he locked in on the economy as his ticket to re-election, he lacked the mental capacity to change gears.

2 Likes
18

huh? you reckon the Wuhan lab carefully crafted a virus that wouldn’t infect China’s age old thorn whom they wish to annex

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That would have been helpful.

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Taiwan is not alone in extremely low COVID death rates for the first year of the pandemic without long-term lockdowns found in the west. The same is true for Vietnam, South Korea, Japan, and other East-Asian neighbors of China.

The question is how did a virus originate in East Asia when East-Asian populations appear to have herd immunity from before the virus even appeared?

Meanwhile the rest of the world is seeing millions of deaths. How is that possible?

1 Like