COVID-19 – a Taiwan experience

by Roger Bills

Perhaps the best time ever to tour Taiwan was early March this year, returning one day before the 14 day quar­antine order!  We had the place virtually, if not literally, to ourselves.  Places where crowds were normally 10 deep with tourists were almost empty.  Palaces and museums espe­cially were crowd-free.

However, roadside eating and restaur­ants were well patron­ised by locals.  So one might expect Taiwan to be riddled with free-floating viruses.  Not so, in fact Taiwan with its popu­la­tion of close to that of Australia, in an area 1/215th that of the land of Oz, had fewer cases than, for instance, NSW.

As I write infection and death rates for the 2 countries are:

Taiwan:216 cases, 2 deaths.
Australia: 2317 cases, 10 deaths
Crikey, the good old Diamond Princess liner had a total 712 cases, 10 deaths

So we are entitled to ask, ”Why is this near China neighbour so much safer?”. The answer is twofold:  Firstly, they were prepared, having learnt from the SARS outbreaking 2003.  Secondly, they acted early and widely.

Everywhere we went our temper­at­ures were measured, initially by people pointing little pistol-like ther­mo­meters at every forehead and later as tech­no­logy jumped a gener­a­tion, by automatic TV style screening of every person entering.  And then there was sanit­ising spray on-hand every­where.  Every building was manned by temper­ature takers and hand sanit­isers. Further, in our hotels, a cleaner was on constant duty disin­fecting the lifts and entrances.

Clearly these proactive measures seem to have worked, given the infection and death rates above.

As a side comment, on arriving in Melbourne there were: No temper­at­ures being monitored. No hand sanit­isers anywhere. Let alone with a desig­nated airport official. But there was a photo­copied A4 sheet taped to a wall saying to use your facemask (which no-one had). From what we had become accus­tomed to, it was just slack. The big message from all this is that, as soon as it is possible, go visit Taiwan.  It’s virally safer than home and the sooner you depart, the smaller the competing crowds.

Alternatively, tour Kangaroo Island now and stay tuned.  Taiwan is likely to be on the Holiday Shorts program next January.  Helen is already working on an exquisite presentation.