Ireland vs Taiwan

httpete

Given that some people have said it is not fair to compare us to New Zealand because they are so isolated, maybe we should compare Ireland to another island, namely Taiwan, the country with the best coronavirus response in the world.



They are one of the most densely populated countries in the world with a population of 24 million, and have huge tourism and trade links with Japan, China, Hong Kong, South Korea, Philippines, Indonesia, nevermind the rest of the world.

Regarding the low paid migrant workers in Ireland, there are lots of Indonesians, Vietnamese and Phillippines working in Taiwan. These three countries account for the vast number of their foreign residents.

Due to their mandatory airport quarantine policy, they have had a total of 480 cases of coronavirus and 7 deaths.

All pubs/nightclubs/festivals/etc.. are running as normal. The average person can enjoy life pretty much as normal until the vaccine arrives, if it arrives of course.

Why are we not able to replicate the Taiwanese policy on the island of Ireland?

What are the disadvantages to the average Irish person if we implemented this policy? What are the advantages?

We are facing into years of disastrously low quality of life in Ireland with our current policy. What is the big problem(s) with replicating the Taiwanese policy here?

httpete

Here is their graph for deaths.

Oranage2

httpete wrote: »

Here is their graph for deaths.

Taiwan is lovely and spotless, no rubbish anywhere and no bins either. I'm guessing the people complied with the rules fully. They'd have known what to do and would have had many policies in place because of the Sars outbreak 17 years ago. I know there's so many doubters because of figures relating to travel but the only effective way is to have restrictions on incoming passengers as shown by the many countries who are doing well now.

httpete

Oranage2 wrote: »

Taiwan is lovely and spotless, no rubbish anywhere and no bins either. I'm guessing the people complied with the rules fully. They'd have known what to do and would have had many policies in place because of the Sars outbreak 17 years ago. I know there's so many doubters because of figures relating to travel but the only effective way is to have restrictions on incoming passengers as shown by the many countries who are doing well now.

Yes, they already had a very comprehensive and extensive plan drawn up and ready to be enacted in the case of a pandemic. This plan was created following the first SARS outbreak as they were one of the worst hit during that period.

Tenzor07

Taiwan has 17 years of being prepared for outbreaks of respiratory disease, Europe and USA haven't.
The Taiwanese experience of dealing with SARS meant they were ready again and knew what to do.

Compare this to the floundering responses of UK and Ireland, night and day..

Ireland took the Foot&mouth outbreak in 2001 more seriously...

MadYaker

The also wear masks and follow all the rules unlike a lot of people here. They put a major pandemic plan in place after SARS1 with plans for contact tracing, isolation etc. Before February nobody in Europe had even heard of contact tracing.

frag420

Maybe the Virus was...

...made in Taiwan?

biko

Taiwan's experience with SARS helped it anticipate and block COVID from taking hold.

httpete

We were 1-2 weeks away from eradication at the end of the lockdown in Ireland, with sustained single figure new cases.

If we had held out for another two weeks and then implemented a two week mandatory quarantine for people entering the country, most likely everything would be open now, and apart from tourism, life would be continuing as normal.

We would be in the same boat as countries/islands who took these measures such as Taiwan and New Zealand. Unfortunately, we didn't have the leadership of those countries.

httpete

httpete wrote: »

We were 1-2 weeks away from eradication at the end of the lockdown in Ireland, with sustained single figure new cases.

If we had held out for another two weeks and then implemented a two week mandatory quarantine for people entering the country, most likely everything would be open now, and apart from tourism, life would be continuing as normal.

We would be in the same boat as countries/islands who took these measures such as Taiwan and New Zealand. Unfortunately, we didn't have the leadership of those countries.

Ahem
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12355759

httpete

Deleted User wrote: »

Ahem
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12355759

Your point being? Please explain to me how a day with 4 new cases is going to be a problem for New Zealand to deal with when they dealt with 80+ new cases a day at the start of the pandemic?



They had 100+ days of normal life and now they are looking at a 3 day lockdown. Then they will go back to enjoying life as normal.

Compare what New Zealand and Taiwan are facing over the next few years to what we are facing...

httpete

httpete wrote: »

Your point being? Please explain to me how 4 cases is going to be a problem for New Zealand to deal with when they dealt with 80+ cases a day at the start of the pandemic?



They had 100+ days of normal life and now they are looking at a 3 day lockdown. Then they will go back to enjoying life as normal.

Compare what New Zealand and Taiwan are facing over the next few years to what we are facing...

New Zealand are facing years of schizophrenic paranoia as they hop into and out lockdowns as clusters pop up While according to imf estimates they still have a higher level of gdp contraction than we do.

Taiwanese know how to self regulate their own behavior without being told what to do

httpete

Deleted User wrote: »

New Zealand are facing years of schizophrenic paranoia as they hop into and out lockdowns as clusters pop up While according to imf estimates they still have a higher level of gdp contraction than we do.

Taiwanese know how to self regulate their own behavior without being told what to do

There's no point trying to exaggerate the situation with the words 'schizophrenic paranoia'. It is clear to everyone that a 3 day lockdown after 100+ days of enjoying life as normal is nothing compared to what we have gone through here and will continue to go through.

Seeing as how their lockdown is only for Wed-Fri, they should be able to go and have a few pints in the pub on Saturday to relax after enduring this terrible schizophrenic paranoia.

httpete

httpete wrote: »

There's no point trying to exaggerate the situation with the words 'schizophrenic paranoia'. It is clear to everyone that a 3 day lockdown after 100+ days of enjoying life as normal is nothing compared to what we have gone through here and will continue to go through.

Seeing as how their lockdown is only for Wed-Fri, they should be able to go and have a few pints in the pub on Saturday to relax after enduring this terrible schizophrenic paranoia.

If after 3 days they haven’t isolated the source of the infection and identified the risk of other unidentified cases associated with it do you believe they won’t immediately extend for 14 days. What’s happening in Victoria is what can easily happen in these situations.

httpete

Deleted User wrote: »

If after 3 days they haven’t isolated the source of the infection and identified the risk of other unidentified cases associated with it do you believe they won’t immediately extend for 14 days. What’s happening in Victoria is what can easily happen in these situations.

They will do whatever it takes to bring the cases to zero and then they will be open up again fully for their citizens, just like they did first time around.

Although they have acted even quicker this time. They were having around 50 new cases a day when they locked down on March 25.

As I said elsewhere, this will be trivial for them to handle given their excellent handling of the virus so far and the fact they have acted even earlier this time.

httpete

I think now is an appropriate time to update this thread since I'm sick to death of hearing how Ireland and New Zealand can't be compared New Zealand when it comes to the implementation of zero covid because New Zealand is so remote.

Why don't we compare Ireland to Taiwan instead? Taiwain handled Covid better than anywhere else, including New Zealand. And this 'remote' argument doesn't wash with Taiwan. Other countries we could also look at include Singapore, Vietnam, and South Korea. But let's stick with Taiwan.

• 24 million population.
• One of the most densely populated countries on earth. For countries with a population greater than 8 million, only Bangladesh has a higher density than Taiwan.
• Not a remote country. Located right beside China. Close to lots of other Asian countries as Ireland like Ireland is to European countries.
• Economy based on huge amount of imports/exports of commodities. Further relevant information.
• The above doesn't include food imports. They also import a huge amount of food because of their "limited arable land and small agricultural sector".
• Over 700,000 foreign laborers, largely from Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, and the Philippines who tend to be employed in factory work, caregiving, and fishing".
• Direct flights to Wuhan that take between 2-3 hours.

By all account Taiwan should be absolutely f*cked with the virus. Here are their stats:

• Total cases: 889
• Total deaths: 7

Note in particular that they are still picking up a couple of new cases every day. But these are cases that are caught in the hotel quarantine at the airports. This is why the mandatory hotel quarantine is so critical and effective. They haven't even had one Covid death since May, they are completely Covid free. So please stop saying mandatory airport quarantine isn't effective when clearly it is extremely effective. As has been shown in all countries that have implemented it.

Thelonious Monk

I would have thought this is because it is Asian people who follow rules and don't think they're entitled to go out and do whatever they want to do like it is here in Ireland, and all other Western countries really. Like comparing chalk and cheese.

httpete

Thelonious Monk wrote: »

I would have thought this is because it is Asian people who follow rules and don't think they're entitled to go out and do whatever they want to do like it is here in Ireland, and all other Western countries really. Like comparing chalk and cheese.

New Zealand and Australia certainly dont have the 'Asian mentality' and they have achieved success with the same strategy. All these zero covid strategy countries have been practically fully open since the lockdown and will continue to stay open while we continue with lockdowns.

We have had 3 serious new variants in the recent past. These countries are also protected from any variants that come along that might come along and render the vaccines ineffective..if that happens we will be back to square one in Ireland.

Last year we had ministers talking about restrictions running into 2021, now we have ministers talking about restrictions running into 2022, are we going to be in the same boat in 2023? Who knows. If they are so confident in the vaccines why arent they saying the problem will be solved by August/September when all the at risk groups will have been long since vaccinated? Because they know that things in reality dont always go according to plan and there is always the possibility of running into the worst case scenario or even just a very bad scenario.

I would prefer to spend the rest of the pandemic, whether that be 5 months or 5 years, in a fully open zero Covid society with mandatory airport quarantine than in a society that spends 9 or 10 months of the year in lockdown with the other 1 or 2 months spent waiting to go back into lockdown.

Thelonious Monk

NZ and Oz aren't part of the EU with open borders etc, not really comparable, we share an open border with what has been one of the most infected countries in the world. We have truck drivers coming from all over Europe, NZ and Oz don't.

hahashake

Deleted User wrote: »

New Zealand are facing years of schizophrenic paranoia as they hop into and out lockdowns as clusters pop up While according to imf estimates they still have a higher level of gdp contraction than we do.

Taiwanese know how to self regulate their own behavior without being told what to do

This aged well.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-12-16/new-zealand-economy-surges-out-of-recession-amid-spending-spree

Also "schizophrenic paranoia as they hop into and out lockdowns as clusters pop up" describes Europe's response, not NZ.

monkeybutter

They made an attempt to stop it getting in, we made zero effort, left a flight full of Italian rugby fans in just for a jolly in the middle of health emergency in Italy.


We have left people fly out on holidays in the middle of a health emergency here when you are not even supposed to be able to go more than 5k unless for essential reasons and going to the airport for a holiday aint one of those


Left 10s of thousands of people over from the UK for xmass all flying over or sailing on petri dishes of virus and from a health emergency there


They are sensible, we aren't, whether they are Asian or Caucasian

Morathi

Thelonious Monk wrote: »

I would have thought this is because it is Asian people who follow rules and don't think they're entitled to go out and do whatever they want to do like it is here in Ireland, and all other Western countries really. Like comparing chalk and cheese.

This cannot be stressed enough.

Like, I don't want to be THAT guy, but it's eye opening living over there and just seeing how devoted they are to not being the sore thumb that sticks out.

Add to that a culture of far less physical contact, and mask wearing already prevalent.

It is absurd to compare Ireland with them.

L'prof

Compare us to the UK and England if anyway as our cultures are far more similar

Tenzor07

monkeybutter wrote: »

They are sensible, we aren't, whether they are Asian or Caucasian

It's a cultural thing, not a racial thing! :mad: :rolleyes:

httpete

Thelonious Monk wrote: »

NZ and Oz aren't part of the EU with open borders etc, not really comparable, we share an open border with what has been one of the most infected countries in the world. We have truck drivers coming from all over Europe, NZ and Oz don't.

Truck drivers. Big deal. Taiwan have massive imports and exports, far larger than Ireland. See my post above and the figures here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Taiwan
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_the_Republic_of_Ireland

They got the job done regardless. They didn't just say ah sure we might as well give up because we have so many truck drivers importing/exporting goods like us. Typical of the attitude which has seen us lose an entire year to the virus, and now it looks like we expect to lose 2022 to it too.

The NI border counties were a disaster for us before Xmas with incredibly high rates in places like Donegal, which then fed into and accelerated the spread in the rest of the country. We could have easily handled the NI border situation. We are not talking about a permanent border closure, we are talking about a temporary closure until the pandemic has diminished sufficiently, just like we did for the foot and mouth crisis. Stop all rail and bus links, Gardai and/or army at every border crossing, allow exceptions for truly essential travel with mandatory hotel quarantine upon routine, fines for breaching the crossing for non-essential travel, furlough the workers near the border who work in the North. That would cut cross-border travel basically to zero.

Please explain to me what we gained by keeping the border with NI open last year when Donegal, Cavan, and Monaghan had the highest rates of infection in Ireland? They then functioned as a massive source of infection for the rest of the country.

I'm sure Taiwan would have got the job done if they were dealing with a border situation like ours. It's not exactly a tough problem to figure out, you just cut travel to zero as described above. The difference is Taiwan prefer to take hard and decisive action to avoid destroying the lives and livelihoods of their citizens whereas our politicians have no foresight or conviction and will always take the handiest option.

httpete

Morathi wrote: »

This cannot be stressed enough.

Like, I don't want to be THAT guy, but it's eye opening living over there and just seeing how devoted they are to not being the sore thumb that sticks out.

Add to that a culture of far less physical contact, and mask wearing already prevalent.

It is absurd to compare Ireland with them.

If you want to compare in terms of society, then what about New Zealand and Australia? We are certainly not so far removed from the Australians. They got the job done.

Thelonious Monk

Not only are NZ and Australia isolated compared to us, they already had pretty strict rules when entering the country on bringing foreign objects etc. I got to NZ and had 2 dogs sniff around me and my bags searched etc.
Human traffic flows a lot freer in Europe and shutting it down would be a far greater deal.
Anyway we are where we are, there's not really much point in wishing we did things like NZ, if it was even possible to do in the first place.

djr15

Thelonious Monk wrote: »

Not only are NZ and Australia isolated compared to us, they already had pretty strict rules when entering the country on bringing foreign objects etc. I got to NZ and had 2 dogs sniff around me and my bags searched etc.
Human traffic flows a lot freer in Europe and shutting it down would be a far greater deal.
Anyway we are where we are, there's not really much point in wishing we did things like NZ, if it was even possible to do in the first place.

There is an argument that it’s not too late to look to those strategies now seeing as we, at this moment, have no visibility on an end to all of this.

There simply is no plan, no milestones set out....

Mismanagement and wish wash for almost 12 months now.

httpete

Thelonious Monk wrote: »

Not only are NZ and Australia isolated compared to us, they already had pretty strict rules when entering the country on bringing foreign objects etc. I got to NZ and had 2 dogs sniff around me and my bags searched etc.
Human traffic flows a lot freer in Europe and shutting it down would be a far greater deal.
Anyway we are where we are, there's not really much point in wishing we did things like NZ, if it was even possible to do in the first place.

Why are you still mouthing on about NZ and Oz? The whole reason I updated this thread is because this argument about the remoteness of NZ and Oz cannot be applied to Taiwan (and Singapore, South Korea, etc..). Taiwan have much larger imports and exports, and they also have much larger general air travel. Taiwan have 72 million people going through their airports annually. Ireland have 38 million.

Thelonious Monk

Taiwan is full of Asians. No comparison.

Paddigol

httpete wrote: »

Why are you still mouthing on about NZ and Oz? The whole reason I updated this thread is because this argument about the remoteness of NZ and Oz cannot be applied to Taiwan (and Singapore, South Korea, etc..). Taiwan have much larger imports and exports, and they also have much larger general air travel. Taiwan have 72 million people going through their airports annually. Ireland have 38 million.

"Mouthing on"... well that's respectful.

Why are you still mouthing on about Taiwan - an Asian country whose population live in perpetual fear/ anticipation of war/ invasion with the world's largest superpower and whose behaviours have been conditioned by millennia of Asian culture? I'm guessing socioeconomics is not your forte. But I'm sure you have all the answers, peer-reviewed of course. Send your CV into Mickey Martin, he'll be delighted.

timeToLive

httpete wrote: »

We were 1-2 weeks away from eradication at the end of the lockdown in Ireland, with sustained single figure new cases.

If we had held out for another two weeks and then implemented a two week mandatory quarantine for people entering the country, most likely everything would be open now, and apart from tourism, life would be continuing as normal.

We would be in the same boat as countries/islands who took these measures such as Taiwan and New Zealand. Unfortunately, we didn't have the leadership of those countries.

It's 100% a leadership problem. Pick a plan and stick to it would be a good start :P

TheRef

There is a very interesting article I remember reading (just search for: Irish living in the world's best city: 'I miss the Irish weather') on the Irish Times a couple of years ago.

The main takeaway I took was that it seemed people in Taiwan took a much higher level of personal responsibility than in Western cultures and they seem to have a more collective spirit.

While this site is a caricature of Ireland, a simple scan of the threads shows that there are just too many people in Ireland who look always find a reason as to why rules don't apply to them.

Some people advocate for fines for those flouting the rules and others say no way. Likewise, some people would be outraged if they heard of a large social gathering of politicians, but the same people would be equally outraged if anyone dare to report a neighbor hosting a similar social large gathering.

I'm not trying to suggest right or wrong in any of the above, but just maybe highlighting that unless everyone takes more personal responsibility and expect everyone to follow the rules, then we have to accept this is who we are as a people.
The few always ruin it for the many, and maybe here in Ireland we have a higher proportion of the few than other cultures.

Morathi

httpete wrote: »

If you want to compare in terms of society, then what about New Zealand and Australia? We are certainly not so far removed from the Australians. They got the job done.

Wouldn't want to comment tbh, I've never lived over there i dunno what the country and culture is like.

Also what happened to this? :pac:

httpete wrote: »

I think now is an appropriate time to update this thread since I'm sick to death of hearing how Ireland and New Zealand can't be compared New Zealand when it comes to the implementation of zero covid because New Zealand is so remote.

Why don't we compare Ireland to Taiwan instead? Taiwain handled Covid better than anywhere else, including New Zealand. And this 'remote' argument doesn't wash with Taiwan. Other countries we could also look at include Singapore, Vietnam, and South Korea. But let's stick with Taiwan.

plodder

httpete wrote: »

Truck drivers. Big deal. Taiwan have massive imports and exports, far larger than Ireland. See my post above and the figures here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Taiwan
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_the_Republic_of_Ireland

How much of that is from roll-on roll-off car ferries? I'd say it's close to zero.

They got the job done regardless. They didn't just say ah sure we might as well give up because we have so many truck drivers importing/exporting goods like us. Typical of the attitude which has seen us lose an entire year to the virus, and now it looks like we expect to lose 2022 to it too.

That's easy for you to say, but the government has to figure out an actual solution before considering zero covid.

I think a fairer comparison for Europe would be China itself and how they managed to isolate Wuhan from the rest of the country for two months. Maybe someone should look into it, identify all the measures they took and then we could see would that be possible in Europe?

httpete

plodder wrote: »

How much of that is from roll-on roll-off car ferries? I'd say it's close to zero.

I assume your point is that use magic or teleportation to handle their massive amounts of imports/exports? Or how do you think this island nation handles their imports/exports?

httpete

The Port of Kaohsiung is the 12th busiest port in the world, and has many notable features, including:

its status as a hub for other popular ports in Asia
Its rank as the 6th biggest container ports in the world, and the biggest in Taiwan
roll-on/roll-off and container shipping services to southern Taiwan
5 container terminals, enabling Port Kaohsiung to except close to 10 million containers every year

https://www.kinternational.com/international-automobile-shipping-to-port-kaohsiung-taiwan-with-roll-onrroll-off-or-container-shipping/

Thelonious Monk

Thelonious Monk wrote: »

Not only are NZ and Australia isolated compared to us, they already had pretty strict rules when entering the country on bringing foreign objects etc. I got to NZ and had 2 dogs sniff around me and my bags searched etc.
Human traffic flows a lot freer in Europe and shutting it down would be a far greater deal.
Anyway we are where we are, there's not really much point in wishing we did things like NZ, if it was even possible to do in the first place.

Oz was months after nz in vigoursly persueing its zero covid lockdown....melbourne was on track to have one of worst outbreaks in world at one stage


Today it had 5 cases for the entire continent......keeping the entire.country here locked down and under restrictions to keep free movement with europe,(we can travel to anywhere in europe,but not 4 or 5 miles down the road) is non-sensical in the extreme

IRISHSPORTSGUY

This thread strikes me as desperately trying to find an angle to have a go at the government. European comparisons are more apt.

plodder

httpete wrote: »

I assume your point is that use magic or teleportation to handle their massive amounts of imports/exports? Or how do you think this island nation handles their imports/exports?

Containers, bulk carriers etc that don't transport humans along with the goods

Same applies to other islands like Aus and NZ, less so to us or the UK.

And from your own link about Kaohsiung

Ro/Ro shipping of wheeled cargo to Port Kaohsiung, including automobiles and certain types of construction equipment.

Automobiles and construction equipment is not lorries with drivers carrying other goods.

GavMan

The level of gubernatorial reach in Taiwan ensures mass compliance

IAMAMORON

I can't believe or trust any of the figures that come out of Asia.

Japan have definitely been covering up trying to enable the Olympics , I would say Korea are the same.

Taiwan has massive connection to China, they are most likely doing whay they are told.

We have no concept of Asian culture and how they get about doing things. I massively don't believe their figures.

ginoginelli

IAMAMORON wrote: »

I can't believe or trust any of the figures that come out of Asia.

Japan have definitely been covering up trying to enable the Olympics , I would say Korea are the same.

Taiwan has massive connection to China, they are most likely doing whay they are told.

We have no concept of Asian culture and how they get about doing things. I massively don't believe their figures.

Youre Clueless.

The Chinese goverment is anathema to the Taiwanese. They are completely independent.

ginoginelli

I have lived in Taiwan. It is a fantastic country. Tech savvy and an extremely high standard of education, very low crime, and super clean, well run cities.

The people are gorgeous, very welcoming and friendly, and go out of their way to help foreigners.

It is by far the most advanced nation I have visited.

If anybody was going to get this virus under control it was them.

timeToLive

ginoginelli wrote: »

I have lived in Taiwan. It is a fantastic country. Tech savvy and an extremely high standard of education, very low crime, and super clean, well run cities.

The people are gorgeous, very welcoming and friendly, and go out of their way to help foreigners.

It is by far the most advanced nation I have visited.

If anybody was going to get this virus under control it was them.

Now I want to move there.

plodder

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jan/27/china-starts-using-anal-swabs-test-covid-high-infection-areas

Then you get China doing this. How much choice will people have about it? Would Europeans agree to that?

If I'm not mistaken, part of Taiwan and South Korea's success was confining people who are infected, in enforced quarantine, not just travelers arriving on their shores. Getting to where they are requires very severe curtailment of individual liberties that the population actually signs up for.

IAMAMORON

ginoginelli wrote: »

I have lived in Taiwan. It is a fantastic country. Tech savvy and an extremely high standard of education, very low crime, and super clean, well run cities.

The people are gorgeous, very welcoming and friendly, and go out of their way to help foreigners.

It is by far the most advanced nation I have visited.

If anybody was going to get this virus under control it was them.

What is the food like?

ginoginelli

IAMAMORON wrote: »

What is the food like?

Maaan. Dont get me started. Its AMAZING.

The night market culture is the big thing there. Its where they generally go in evenings and weekends. There are huge sprawling night markets everywhere with all sorts of deliciousness. Taiwanese fried chicken was one of my favourite things to get.

If you have ever been to Thailand, its similar to some of the Bangkok markets, but on a whole other scale.

And unlike a lot of other asian countries with a street food culture, they are super clean and well regulated. The Taiwanese really pride themselves on their hygiene and it shows, everything is spotless and well looked after.

Restaurants are decent too. Dumplings and beef noodle soup are very popular, and alot of places will just specify in one thing and be known for that.

Everything is very reasonably priced too.

biko

Taiwan at only 9 dead.
This is what others could have accomplished with enough foresight and fast responses.

There was a recent outbreak so anything could happen. Cannot relax yet.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n9LLDRVzYOo