Taiwan’s Naval Blunder Proves You’re Never Completely Out of the Woods with COVID-19
Even the countries with the best COVID-19 pandemic responses are never completely out of the woods.
Singapore had a model response — but its infections have shot up in the past few weeks as contagion has taken hold in foreign labor dormitories and now the city-state is on lockdown and extending the lockdown.
Taiwan has by most accounts had the best response so far, but when I left the US to come to Taiwan in mid-March there were only 47 confirmed cases in Taiwan. For the next month, we watched with anxiety as that number shot up to near 400 — with 10–20 new cases everyday. With tight travel restrictions: closing the border to non-residents, and a mandatory 14-day quarantine on anybody entering the country, the vast majority of these ~350 cases from mid-March to mid-April were imported from abroad and caught either at the airport or while the infected person was already in quarantine.
As such, there hasn’t been any evidence of sustained community spread, so we’ve avoided the lockdown/‘shelter-in-place” situation most of the world is in.
And after month of 10–20 new cases every day, we finally got to see zero new cases in a day again a few times early last week.
But, you’re never completely out of the woods with this thing. A couple of days ago, 3 members of the Taiwanese navy, who had been out at sea for the past month, reported symptoms, went to the doctor and tested positive. Taiwanese authorities quickly tested more people from that ship and two others — and 21 more members of the navy tested positive. Now over 700 members of the Taiwanese navy are in quarantine. But, the 24 positive cases were out and about in the community for a few days after being back in Taiwan. So, now anxiety levels in Taiwan are high again.
One would almost certainly expect family members, close friends, girlfriends, etc. of some of these navy members to be showing up in the confirmed case count in the coming days. But how many others from the community-at-large?
We could be heading for a lockdown/’shelter-in-place” soon — but, if that’s the case, I have faith that Taiwan is still much better prepared for such a situation than other countries have been.
