Taiwan CovID ★ case-fatality rate (death rate) , recovery rate
    ★   world No. 1 in   2020~26,  2017~19,  2016,  2015,  2014,  2013,  2010~12     ★  Top  since 1998   ★  
　


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go to CovID (1/2)

　

　

No.1 "comment Taiwan CovID" on Bing, 2026-1-22

　

No.1 "comment Taiwan CovID" on Baidu, 2026-1-22

　

The website group ranks No.1 "comment Taiwan CovID" on Yandex, 2026-1-21

　

 		　

　

No.1 "comment Taiwan CovID" on Duckduckgo, 2026-1-24
　

　

No.1 "comment Taiwan CovID" on US Yahoo, 2026-1-24

　

　

　

　


STATISTA, 2022-4-19
Coronavirus (COVID-19) death rate in countries with confirmed deaths
and over 1,000 reported cases as of April 7, 2022, by country

　

Taiwan's death rate is highest among Asian major countries
　
country Death rate(%) Confirmed cases number of deaths
Taiwan* 3.38 25,225 853
Indonesia 2.58 6,026,324 155,464
Sri Lanka 2.49 662,342 16,486
Cambodia 2.25 135,834 3,055
Pakistan 1.99 1,526,093 30,361
Philippines 1.61 3,680,244 59,422
Bangladesh 1.49 1,951,903 29,123
India 1.21 43,031,958 521,530
Saudi Arabia 1.2 751,404 9,053
China 0.88 1,495,380 13,098
Malaysia 0.82 4,280,591 35,192
Thailand 0.68 3,807,908 25,788
Vietnam 0.43 9,980,464 42,712
Japan 0.42 6,830,997 28,462
Laos 0.36 188,985 684
Australia 0.13 4,910,819 6,495
South Korea 0.12 14,778,405 18,381
Singapore 0.11 1,123,886 1,287
New Zealand 0.06 741,987 426
statista.com/statistics/1105914/coronavirus-death-rates-worldwide/   2022-4-19

　

◆ Financial Times (UK) , 2022-4-18    ft.com/content/dd4a3bd0-8973-4222-9eed-f9bfe4c37691
The Omicron variant of coronavirus is forcing Taipei to move from preventing infections to coexisting with the virus.
Chen Shih-chung, health minister, Taiwan plans to gradually lift an entry ban for non-residents and ease quarantine requirements for returning residents.
Jason Wang, a professor at Stanford But this is Omicron, and you have to let go
Ho Mei-shang, an adjunct fellow at Academia Sinica It would be a failure if some people even did not get the chance to get into the health facilities


◆ AFP, France24, 2022-4-7: Taiwan will move away from a zero-Covid policy and instead focus on tackling the most severe infections...One sticking point could be lacklustre vaccination rates...Vaccination rates among the elderly, the most vulnerable demographic, are also low.  france24.com/en/live-news/20220407-taiwan-to-move-away-from-zero-covid-strategy-minister
◆  aljazeera, 2022-4-14: Taiwan's COVID-hit tourism stews as island shuns global reopening. 

Taiwan is a rare holdout in Asia that remains closed to tourists and still mandates quarantine for arrivals.
Self-ruled island's continuing isolation makes it a rare holdout in a region that has largely abandoned border controls.
aljazeera.com/economy/2022/4/14/for-taiwan-tourism-frustration-as-island-misses-global-reopening

◆ Reuters, 2022-4-6: Taiwan aims for zero serious COVID cases as infections edge up (not 'coexisting with the virus' )
 ◆ Reuters, 2022-4-3: Taiwan says new CovID cases won't affect re-opening plans. ◆ United Daily, 2022-4-8, editorial: Taiwan's testing capacity and medication are obviously not good enough - Remdesivir only 16,000,  Paxlovid 4,000+ available. udn.com/news/story/7338/6223069?from=udn-catehotnews_ch2    ◆ United Daily, 2022-4-7 (udn.com/news/story/7339/6219905?from=udn-catehotnews_ch2 邱淑媞): Taiwan reopens without good preparations - testing capacity, drugs, quarantine rooms.  Oral drugs must be given within 5 days after morbidity, but we can't know all patients' condition without testing capacity.

◆ New York Times, 2022-3-5: Since Tuesday, people in Taiwan have no longer been required to wear masks in settings where they were previously mandatory, both indoors and outdoors: exercising, taking selfies and group photos, driving with household members, in spas and in video broadcasts, speeches and lectures... Taiwan's record (20,717 cases and 853 deaths ) is low by the standards of the hardest-hit countries.  nytimes.com/live/2022/03/05/world/covid-19-tests-cases-vaccine

○

Vaccination rate by Countries of Asia & Pacific
New York Times, 2022-2-3
vaccinated  % fully vaccinated  %

additional dose  %
UAE  99+  95 44
China 91  88  24
Cambodia 87   83  37
Singapore 86 84  55
S. Korea  86  85 53
Australia   86 80 32
Qatar 83  78  -
Vietnam  82 75 -
Malaysia  82  80 38
New Zealand 81 80 28
 Macau  81 76 12
Japan 80 79 4
 Taiwan  80  73 23
   nytimes.com/interactive/2021/world/covid-vaccinations-tracker.html

☉

◆ Diplomat, 2022-2-3:Taiwan, is bucking the trend and is one of the few places still sticking with its zero-COVID strategy.thediplomat.com/2022/02/how-long-will-taiwan-stick-to-its-zero-covid-approach/
　

Bloomberg, Nov. 25, 2021  

"Winners and Losers" from a year of ranking Covid resilience

 Pandemic MVPs - Only 7 places never fell into the bottom half of the ranking
world rank country of Asia & Pacific Asia's rank
4/53 U.A.E. 1
6 S. Korea 2
8 Mainland China 3
9 Hong Kong 4
10 Saudi Arabia 5
12 Japan 6
13 Australia 7
17 New Zealand 8
20 Singapore 9
30 Pakistan 10
31 Taiwan 11
32 Bangladesh 12
moneyweb.co.za/news/international/winners-and-losers-from-a-year-of-ranking-covid-resilience/
 Taiwan successfully eliminated and kept out Covid in the first year , now it is in the bottom half among 53 countries
status:

 fatality rate / Johns Hopkins University, Statista, 2022-2-1: Taiwan CovID19 case-fatality rate 4.54%,  which was 4.9%,  8th highest worldwide according to Johns Hopkins University, China Post, 2021-7-14.  recovered / Statista: Taiwan CovID-19 recovery rate (2020-1-22 ~ 2022-1-30): 73.35% ;  Bing: Taiwan's recovered: 0;  PS: Bloomberg, 2021-10-28 : Taiwan's 3-month case fatality rate 7.7%, 2021-9-28: 13.4%, both are worst worldwide, it gets back to 0.2 in Jan. 2022. 

　

　
○
news: aljazeera, 2021-11-26: Taiwan continues to pursue an isolationist "zero CovID-19" policy.  Taiwan's border restrictions remain some of the strictest in the world.  Because:
(1) a low tolerance on any community outbreak
(2) with a national referendum looming in Dec. and local elections in 2022 for key posts ... the gov. is seen to have little incentive to open up ...

　

news: Scuffles in Taiwan parliament for CovID-19 surge /

nABC news, 9-29: Taiwan lawmakers brawl amid anger over COVID response.   The KMT party called recently shortened quarantine requirements for pilots a “big breach”.   many Youtubers' comments were supportive of the brawl. Some praised the Kuomingtang for “becoming stronger.   abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/taiwan-lawmakers-break-brawl-policy-speech-80276994

nReuters, 9-28: Scuffles in Taiwan parliament, premier blocked from podium in COVID dispute .  The KMT members then scuffled with DPP counterparts and threw things at the dais...Taiwan's legislature does see unruly scenes from time to time and rivals have been known to punch each other.  news.yahoo.com/scuffles-taiwan-parliament-premier-blocked-102314300.html

nNew York Post, 9-28:  In the ensuing melee, a few lawmakers were shoved to the ground and others poured out bottles of water onto their opponents.  Many had suspected the outbreak had come from pilots returning home who only had to do three-day quarantines. The original source of the May outbreak hasn't been officially confirmed.    nypost.com/2021/09/28/taiwan-lawmakers-brawl-during-policy-speech/

nUS News, 9-28: The KMT has been demanding that Premier Su Tseng-chang apologise for his government's handling of the coronavirus, especially quarantine lapses that might have led to a spike in cases beginning in May    usnews.com/news/world/articles/2021-09-28/scuffles-in-taiwan-parliament-premier-blocked-from-podium-in-covid-dispute

　

Telegraph (UK), 2021-9-10: People think pilots are murderers because we brought back the virus’: Taiwan’s Covid scapegoats‘Imprisoned’ by quarantine and isolated from their families, flight crews have become social pariahs...may be ... bullied to the point of doing fatal mistakes telegraph.co.uk/global-health/science-and-disease/people-think-pilots-murderers-brought-back-virus-taiwans-covid/  
★
 New York Times, 2021-5-25: The model citizen of the world now has become a bit of a problem child (nytimes.com/2021/05/25/arts/music/taiwan-covid-shutdown-music.html) .  After paying dearly - high death rate 87 times that in Singapore, Taiwan's critical situation was temporarily improved - "bleeding" was paused because of tight borders, strict quarantine, contact tracing system and mandated mass mask-wearing ― Independent (UK) comments : "Taiwan’s pandemic control measures is the thorough quarantine for patients tested positive for Covid-19", “This is the critical step that the US and other western countries aren’t able to take ".(independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/taiwan-covid-tutor-sex-pandemic-b1887296.html)  New York Post (4-25-2020) : Taiwan deals with CovID-19 with "a lot more authoritarian". ― so does its vaccine-allocation measure.

  

　

◆  human lives are not Taiwan's main concerns

According to Bloomberg's Resilience Ranking (2021-8-26), Taiwan's 3-month case-fatality rate is worst among Asian countries, 3rd worst worldwide.  Johns Hopkins University (2021-7-22): Taiwan has one of the world's highest case-fatality rates.    Bloomberg, 2021-7-26 (bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-07-25/an-unusually-deadly-outbreak-in-taiwan-was-driven-by-complacency) : The high fatality rate in Taiwan is due to the virus wave hitting older people, with 90% of deaths occurring in those aged 60 or older .  Taiwan's CDC said 97% of those who died of Covid-19 were over 50 (2021-7-4). US CDC Jun. 2021: The risk increases for people in their 50s and increases in 60s, 70s... which is similar to what happened in Taiwan.  

However, human lives have never been government's main concern.  The gov. once eliminated senior citizens aged 65-75 from vaccination list from very beginning, later gave those aged 50~99 and weak people with severe illness 10th ~ 6th low priorities to get vaccinated.  In Israel, people aged 60 are first priority group to get inoculated, but in Taiwan they are the last (10th) priority, in democratic countries, cancer and severe patients are top priority group, but in Taiwan, they are the 9th, the second to last, group.  By contrast, a large number of officers (gov., military, etc) were offered 2nd priority, the number of officials is still expanding "unlimitedly" without check or supervise (Next TV, 2021-9-1), and lots of black-box privileged people jumped the queue, according to UDN July '21, despite WHO's advises that government leaders and admin. personnel should be narrowly interpreted to "a very small number of individuals" (for vaccination).  Near half of officials (in 2nd priority group) are fully vaccinated, but only 1% of the elders aged 75+ got 2nd shot (China Times, 2021-9-8).  Till Sept. 8, Taiwan's CDC several times avoids answering media's question about the vaccination rate of the vulnerable - aged 50~64 and people with severe disease, in total 9~10 millions people.  This is consistent with Taiwan's style ―  no virus-test for the public (New York Times, 2021-5-20: "excessively 'frugal' approach") and no medicine Remdesivir for patients, which caused more deaths (udn.com/news/story/7339/5513808?from=udn-catehotnews_ch2  楊哲銘, Jun. 2021).

　

　

PIC. : Scuffles in Taiwan parliament for CovID-19 surge, 2021-9-28 ; pic. right: No.1 "comment Taiwan CovID-19"  on US Yahoo, 2022-2-3, 2021-11-29, 2021-10-15, 2021-10-7

　

　

　

　

　

     

pic.: No.1 "comment Taiwan CovID-19" on Bing, 2022-2-3,
2021-11-29, 2021-9-27

　


★◦Taiwan's 3-month case fatality rate in Bloomberg CovID Resilience Ranking  2021-10-28, 7.7%, remains world worst

Bloomberg CovID Resilience Ranking  2021-9-28

CovID status
Economy (country) 3-month case fatality rate % people covered by vaccine% score
Taiwan 13.4% (worst worldwide) 30 56.5
Saudi Arabia 1.5 60.9 71
India 1.5 31.3 56.2
Malaysia 1.4 64.6 44.1
HK 1.1 56.8 69.8
Australia 0.5 51.8 61.8
S. Korea 0.3 58.7 68.2
Japan 0.3 62 67.3
UAE 0.3 92.3 74.7
Singapore 0.2 80.8 70
New Zealand 0.1 49.9 59.6
mainland China 0 78.4 68.8

full details :   https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/covid-resilience-ranking/

score and rank by indexes: lockdown severity,   flight capacity ,  vaccinated travel routes,  people covered by vaccines

　

CovID Resilience Ranking, 2021-8-26
full data : https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/covid-resilience-ranking/

Asian country ranking people covered by vaccine 3-month case fatality rate
pic.: No.1 "comment Taiwan CovID-19" on Ecosia of Germany, Dogpile, Metacrawler, INFO., Excite, etc, at 2021-11-19, 2021-9-24, 2021-9-8, 2021-9-2, 2021-8-30
Singapore 8 76.7 0.4%
UAE 15 82.7 0.2%
Hong Kong 18 47.7 0.9%
Saudi Arabia 19 51.1 1.2%
China 24 70.1 0%
S. Korea 26 37.3 0.3%
New Zealand 29 28.9 0%
Australia 31 34.2 0.5%
Japan 33 47.5 0.5%
Taiwan 41  21.7 7.6%

◦★

◆  Taiwan, an immoral country !      aged 70 is behind aged 17
Moreover, while Singapore launched a campaign to persuade elderly vaccine holdouts, Taiwan is going opposite direction ―  The gov. said (2021-9-2) about 2 millions of pfizer BNT vaccine doses for the high-risk old people will be moved to teenagers and youngsters aged 18-22, after Taiwan's president Tsai Ing-wen's directions to inoculate people aged18-22(or 24) with strongest immune system,  lots of AstraZeneca vaccine doses are allocated to aged 23-28.  Taiwan CDC (2021-9-2) even declared priority will be shifted to groups younger, and lied the number of old populations not vaccinated are few. ( but Formosa TV, 2021-8-31: a large number of (should be millions) aged 50-65 and ill people are waiting for their first shot. )  Taiwan's border can not be closed completely, and CDC firmly believes fully vaccination means perfect protection,  therefore strict quarantine (隔離檢疫)  is not needed for pilots  (EVA air pilots breakthrough infections were found at 2021-9-3;   UDN, 2021-9-7;  udn.com/news/story/7338/5726958?from=udn-catehotnews_ch2) which resulted in "a Delta variant outbreak in New Taipei City" (Bloomberg , 2021-9-8) .  Now the vulnerable without any vaccination might become a big loophole again. 

　

TAIWAN           VS.          USA,   Singapore,  Israel
The US Singapore Israel Taiwan
warns Americans over 60... not vaccinated, are at extreme risk.
(New York Times 2021-8-24)

￭ Singapore will give its first Covid-19 vaccine booster shots - to seniors aged 60 and above

 
 ￭ Singapore launched a campaign to persuade elderly vaccine holdouts

  In Israel, adults aged 60 are first priority group, but in Taiwan they are the 10th (say last) priority ● Taiwan CDC  (2021-9-2): Plenty of opportunities were offered for older populations already, now the opportunities will be moved to groups younger. 
But the truth is millions of older adults kept awaiting their first BNT or Moderna shot from beginning.  One day earlier (9-1) CDC promised "will arrange vaccination for aged 50-65 as soon as possible... new vaccines will come in the next 2 week...".
 ●  Taipei Times, 2021-9-1: people older than 70 had the lowest inoculation rate in the city-state.
￭ NY Times, 2021-8-23: Critics say Taiwanese worry local vaccine which effectiveness and safety have not been proved ￭ Lots of local critiques against Taiwan's harboring local vaccine


Similar to what Singapore did, New York Times, 2021-8-24, warned “the vast majority of people dying from Covid-19 are people who are older and unvaccinated".  "Americans over 60... not vaccinated, are at extreme risk". Nature, Aug., 2020: COVID-19 is extremely dangerous for people in their mid-fifties, sixties and seventies. Associated Press, 2021-7-20 point out:  most young people... typically suffer only mild symptoms of the virus...many public health experts have raised questions about the morality of inoculating low-risk children at a time when many of the most vulnerable people still lack access to vaccines...  HopkinsMedicine.org, Dec. 2, 2020: disease was mostly affecting older adults, and that young people were more likely to have milder cases of the disease.   
　

TAIWAN's vaccine would be prioritized for aged 12-17, 18-22
media comments
Associated Press, 2021-4-8 seniors are between 1,300 and 8,700 times more likely to die of COVID-19 than those 5-17
Statista, 2021-9-16 In Japan, the number of CovID-19 death under aged 20 is 0
New York times, 2021-9-2 the island (Taiwan) has fully vaccinated just under 4 percent of its population
United Daily, editorial, 2021-9-4

Public health experts criticized this a wrong policy because the older adults and high-risk groups need these vaccine more,  the teenagers and youngsters are less likely to have severe illness  (udn.com/news/story/7338/5721193?from=udn-catehotnews_ch2)    United Daily, editorial, 2021-9-12: priority vaccine status being granted to students obviously is an example of anti-science
China Times, editorial, 2021-9-8 The government ignores high-risk older populations.  Using vaccine to draw votes is "cold-blood", "losing their souls "  chinatimes.com/opinion/20210907005525-262101?chdtv
United Daily, editorial, 2021-9-18 Taiwan's vaccination priority does not follow principle of science, but is based on electoral interest  (接種順序並不照科學防疫原則，而是根據選票考量)


Younger group has been DPP's base.  CTV 2021-9-2: Taiwan's vaccine policy is in the DPP’s electoral interest, good for election in 2022.   (For details pls. read web-pages below or click here.)    United Daily, editorial, 2021-7-18: Taiwan's vaccination policy, an unique case among democratic countries !  Taipei city mayor at 2021-7-4 and 2021-8-30 criticized the country is making "vaccine privilege" and declared he hold the list of privileged people in Presidential Office secretly getting vaccinated.  South China Morning Post, 2021-6-28 reported Taiwan's "vaccine privilege" and queue-jumping chaos.  Taiwan ignores, shields and creates chaos. 

　

TAIWAN's vaccination policy
experts and scholars comments
China Times, editorial by editor in chief, 2021-9-3 The vaccines always are prioritized for the high-risk populations and the vulnerable in all countries around the world except Taiwan, Why does Taiwan's government specially arrange aged 18-22 with strongest immune system to cut in line for BNT-Pfizer vaccination ? 
United Daily, editorial, 2021-9-4 Given vaccine shortage, the vaccination principle should aim to reduce the number of CovID-19 deaths and serious infections, that's why all countries worldwide prioritized the old populations and people with severe illness for vaccination.  Taiwan's vaccination policy is based upon government's selfishness and special purpose.
CTV news (2021-6-23 and 2021-9-2) Emperor of Japan was waiting on the queue for vaccination ! (CTV : till July 6, '21)  , Euro. VIP politicians never barged their way to the front of the queue, but Taiwan did it always .  
The president of NTU Children's Hospital, Li-Min Huang (黃立民) , 2021-9-1 Taiwan's vaccination plan is chaotic and complicated.  TTV, 2021-9-8, Huang: seniors aged 60+ are at high risk of hospitalization and severe illness for Delta.
National Taiwan University  professor, King ChwanChuen (金傳春), 2021-9-1 CDC should not turn into a election campaign center, priority for youngsters is a wrong strategy totally. (根本是錯誤的政策, 指揮中心不應變成選票中心)
Dr. Ho Mei-shang, epidemiologist, Academia Sinica All aged 50 and older must got vaccinated before winter (CDC at 2021-9-6 avoids answering this)
China Times, editorial, 2021-9-8; chinatimes.com/opinion/20210907005525-262101?chdtv BNT-Pfizer doses are used to please ruling party's base.  Vaccinations should follow the order  by age group from older to younger with proportion 4 (2nd dose) : 1 (1st dose).
National Taiwan University professor, Hsiu-Hsi Chen, 2021-9-9 (TTV) 2 shots for seniors aged 60 and older, 1 shot for the rest
National Taiwan University professor, Chang Chuan Chan, 2021-9-14 (CTN ) vaccinations should proceed in the order of age to raise 2nd dose vaccination rate, the schedule for young students should be postponed.  


　

In addition to abusing power,  tricky calculations are applied by the gov. too - such as :

　

●

vote-buying by vaccine  pic. CTV news, 2021-8-30,  Ruling party shifts vaccine policy to draws the young's votes   www.youtube.com/watch?v=-CiBe6E6B5E
 ●   Both the ruling party and the opposition are using vaccine-allocation policy to draw votes from two different "markets" - youngsters (aged 18-29) and young adults (30-40), ignoring millions of high-risk old adults have not got their 1st shot.  This reminds of critiques by US Country Reports on Human Rights Practices ( 2021-3-30 ) about vote-buying in Taiwan's presidential election in 2020.  Similar thing !  but the opposition just talk, the ruling party did it - allocating doses to aged 12-29, which makes aged 50-65 devastated, according to TTV news, 2021-9-1.

●  The gov. denied placing obstacles on civil org's (Foxconn etc) purchasing BNT Pfizer vaccine to save Taiwan's vaccine shortage,  TIME, 2021-7-25:  the government took nearly a month to allow them to begin the process. Taiwan's president Tsai blamed the vaccine shortage on interference from Beijing, which didn’t stop her popularity from plunging... ref. to  time.com/6083748/taiwan-vaccines-terry-gou-foxconn/    Reuters, 2021-7-11: Foxconn founder Gou said Beijing did not interfere in the talks.   At present the gov. still blocks non-governmental org. purchasing western vaccines.  New York Times  2021-6-16: More than half, though, said they would receive a western vaccine purchased through a Chinese distributor.
 ●  The United Daily, 2021-7-30: The gov. manipulates and distorts the statistic figures about vaccine things. udn.com/news/story/7338/5637510
 ●  The United Daily, 2021-7-30: The algorithm of vaccination computer system is "complicated and keep changing", so that many people just failed to get jabbed.  Taipei city councilperson named it a "cheating platform"  udn.com/news/story/7338/5637508?from=udn-catehotnews_ch2  health.udn.com/health/story/121833/5638858

●  The China Times (2021-7-28, chinatimes.com/realtimenews/20210727002700-260405?chdtv) reports some vulnerable with chronic/severe diseases now are not approved by the platform for inoculation.
 ●  Despite some suggests (cna.com.tw/news/firstnews/202107115005.aspx),  Taiwan government at 2021-7-27 suddenly changed the vaccination rule from 'older people first' to 'first reg. first get', etc so that several millions of old adults waiting for Moderna doses hit the wall.  CTV news, 2021-9-3, 2021-7-29: gov. triggers popular discontent. (民怨四起).

　

　

 　 　
　

pic.: No.1 "Taiwan vaccine privilege" on Microsoft Bing, Yahoo Taiwan, 2021-10-28, 2021-9-29, 2021-9-2, 2021-8-31,  No.1 "comment Taiwan CovID-19 privilege" , "comment Taiwan vaccine privilege" on Microsoft Bing, US Yahoo, 2021-10-28, 2021-9-7, 2021-8-30, 2021-8-25, 2021-8-22


http://intlhumanrights.com/TaiwanCovID19.htm

　

　

Facing many advices, sufficient vaccine supply, and about 65% of officials (2nd group) being fully vaccinated, Taiwan's vaccine priority order seems to back on the right track, CDC declared at 2021-9-16 that vaccination will proceed in the order of vulnerability and age - seniors aged 64 and below will follow severe ill people to get their first shot  ... Now one more issue remains - how can seniors be fully vaccinated before Fall-Winter.

　

★

◆  Taiwan's CovID-19 world rankings

       In Bloomberg's CovID-19 Resilience Ranking at 2021-8-25 (bloomberg.com/graphics/covid-resilience-ranking/),  Taiwan plunges into the bottom half (No.41) of the Ranking (from No. 5 in April, down to No. 15 in May 2021, and No. 44 out of 53 countries in Jun. 2021) , accentuated by a lagging vaccination drive and a resurgent outbreak, etc.  Taiwan was ranked No. 42 (score 56) in Nikkei CovID-19 Recovery Index (Japan, 2021-7-31), and No.49 out of 50 countries in Economist "The Global Normalcy Index".

●

◆  recovery rate, death rate, vaccination rate

● vaccination rate:  Bloomberg, 2021-8-26: Taiwanese 'people covered by vaccine is 21.7, compared with Singapore's 76.7, China 70.0. Japan Times, 2021-7-19: Taiwan’s greatest miscalculation was its last-minute deferment of the purchase of the Pfizer vaccine from Germany’s BioNTech.   Global Times, 2021-7-4 (brief): Rush for leftover COVID-19 doses in Taiwan sparks widespread criticism of the government's lacking of a transparent process that fostered privilege and corruption.  Taiwan's MD and hospitals  (Taiwan  2021-7-29: 68% of aged 75+, 75% of aged 64-75)

● Taiwan's case-fatality rate (5.22% till 2021-8-31) is one of worst worldwide.  CTV news, 2021-7-11, China Post, 2021-7-14, Johns Hopkins University: Taiwan has 8th highest case fatality rate worldwide.  The number of Taiwanese deaths in 1 day (Jun. 5) is more than that of Singapore all time. A Taiwanese professor in Global Times, 2021-6-24, said Taiwan's high CFR and the increase in cremations, which exceeded 55 percent of the same period last year, suggest that the actual number of infections in the island is much higher than the announced numbers - must be multiplied by 2.55+.  Taipei mayor Ko : the high CFR indicates a large number of undetected infections.

★

● Recovery rate:  Taiwan CDC, 2021-6-22: Six Taiwanese recovered from CovID-19 are detected positive while entering China (Xiamen city);  CTV news 2021-6-16: a CovID-19 recovered patient died suddenly 4 days after being discharged from hospital.   The PCR test capacity in Singapore is 5+ times of that in Taiwan (https://udn.com/news/story/121823/5493969?from=udn-catehotnews_ch2) , but its population is only less than 1/4 Taiwan's.  

●  

★●

◆ Taiwan's president prioritizes young adults over old adults' lives, WHY?  

★●

pic.: No.1 "comment Taiwan CovID-19" on Dogpile, at 2021-10-28, 2021-10-7, 2021-9-28, 2021-9-7, 2021-8-30
　

Taiwan's president intends to give priority to young adults rather than a large number of old and ill adults still waiting in the queue for vaccination. Why ?  Taiwan gov. always put the cart before the horse, such as politics over human lives (chinatimes.com/opinion/20210801002619-262101?chdtv) , national health-care system cared CovID-19 medicines (Remdesivir) more than patient's lives (udn.com/news/story/7339/5513808?from=udn-catehotnews_ch2  楊哲銘), etc.  References show something more as below:


 ◆  President Tsai Ing-wen ignores advices by western media like USNI.org (2021), Foreign Policy, New York Times, ＵS Army University Press, Military Review,  Daily Express (UK), Financial Times (UK), etc concerning the issue that Taiwan needs to develop a bigger and larger army, lengthen its period of mandatory service to two years, raise reserve forces' readiness.  Tsai's ruling party was even afraid to discuss the things with the public, because, Financial Times (UK) noted "... the young voters courted by the ruling Party".  In brief, ruling party's main concern is elections, instead of life or death of the country (not to mention lives or death of the old adults) ―― unless America's sons and daughters are willing to die for Taiwan.

◆  CTV news, 2021-8-30: The ruling party intends to fool the young people to draw popularity and vote,   Lowy Institute (Australia), 2021-8-13: "younger voters lean towards the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP)" , most young voters voted for Tsai I. W., only 12% voted for KMT candidate.  Public Radio International (2020-1-17) analyses that young Taiwanese adults played a key role in Tsai Ing-wen's big win in presidential election 2020.  Some local media (such as today.line.me/tw/v2/article/gvGj1N) have similar view too.  The ruling party most likely needs them to win next elections. 
◆  TIME, 2021-7-26 noted president Tsai's popularity is plunging "as many Taiwanese people agonized over the lack of jabs", therefore she needs to keep the ruling party DPP's base.

time.com/6083748/taiwan-vaccines-terry-gou-foxconn/

◆  N.Y. Times, 12-1-2019: the soft underbelly of Taiwanese politics: patronage networks.
◆  GT, 2021-7-11: Tsai Ing-wen's Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) authority for putting political interests above public health.
 ◆  Liberty Times, 2020-7-21, editorial;  this pro-DPP media reported that only 2.3% Taiwanese believe politicians worth people's trust - they don't think highly of ethics.
 ◆  KMT's mayor allocating vaccines  to Neighborhood Chiefs (the head of a basic community unit) was criticized by DPP's mayors as "aim for election in the future", therefore, by the same logical thinking, DPP (ruling party) allocating vaccines can be interpreted as serving same purpose.
 ◆  Liberty Times, a pro-DPP media, also criticized (1-21-2020) the ruling party by names "rotten",  "smells".   That's its brand personality. 
PS1: Next TV, 2021-7-27: Youngsters' degree of satisfaction for president Tsai rises soon after new vaccination policy of favoring youngsters was announced.  PS2:   USA Country Reports on Human Rights practices,  2021-3-30 criticizes Taiwanese politicians vote-buying in presidential elections in 2020. 

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Why ? one of world's  highest death rate

　

　

Why ? CovID-19 death rate in Taiwan is worse than global average !

                                                                                                    put cart before the horse ! elders' lives don't matter !?

 Taiwan's CovID-10 recovery rate and death rate both are worse than Asia average and world average...

SCMP, 2021-6-9,  scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3136609/coronavirus-critics-ask-why-taiwans-death-rate-higher-global:  Taiwan has a fatality-per-infection rate of 2.78 per cent (jumps to 4.91 % at July 17, 2021) compared with global average 2.14 per cent.  critics ask why Taiwan’s death rate is higher than the global pandemic average ?
Taiwanese government's official answer is mainly because of the acute rise in cases in the past month and because many patients had pre-existing chronic diseases。 CDC at 2021-6-25 changed its phrase and said that's because elders aged 60+ account for 90% deaths.  

However, the real causes probably are  ... most elders are assigned to low priority group by the gov. and have not got vaccinated till late Jun. (by contrast, 寰宇 news, 2021-6-25: more than half of Japanese elders aged 65+ got the jab already, EU urged speeding it up to fight corona-virus variant;  Singapore president said in Jun. any aged 60+ can get vaccinated without any registration etc )
　

●◆shortage of vaccines  /   aged 60+ are in waiting line
      (1)  New York Times, 2021-5-21: Taiwan focused on developing its own vaccine, which has yet to pan out, and did not hustle for overseas doses. (Taiwan's vaccine probably can not get the green light from the global health body, media question the gov. trying to benefit from vaccine) 。  The gov.  turned down opposition's plan to purchase BNT vaccine for all the citizens by the phrase "we bought enough vaccine doses" .  But one day later (July 16) Taiwan's representative to APEC forum urged member countries to help us with vaccines.  Taiwan puts politics above human lives. 
      (2)  TTV news, 2021-7-4, Global Times, 2021-6-18,  Taiwan CDC , 2021-6-25, 2021-6-8:  90+% deaths are elder residents aged 60+  。 But Taiwan lets many elders and those with chronic disease stand behind the waiting queue ( www-ws.pthg.gov.tw/Upload/2015pthg/82/relfile/10275/502184/6-9版covid-19疫苗公費接種對象_att1.pdf).  Taiwan even decides to move BNT Pfizer vaccine doses for elders to teenagers and aged 18-22 (NY Times, 2021-9-2), even study shows those groups have strongest immune system, and aged below 50 only account for about 3% deaths.

      (3)  so many Taiwanese abuse privilege or power to jump long queue to get inoculated.  Taipei mayor criticizes at 2021-7-4 that "the country has been creating privilege for vaccinations",   "vaccinations should follow the age orders".    CTV news (中視), 2021-6-9 :  abusing power to get the jab, just like Taiwan's lousy  judiciary ("有錢判生 沒錢判死"  ―  "有錢免排  沒錢等埋" ) .  TTV news, 2021-6-23: Taipei mayor slammed a best-known law maker was repeatedly "illegally" lobbying vaccine doses.  FTV news, 2021-6-9 (8:00pm ~) criticizes Taipei government for "vaccination privilege".


●◆ inadequate medicines /   ◆  Formosa TV news, 2021-7-12: Taiwanese high death rate was caused by inadequate medicines.  ◆ Bloomberg, 2021-7-25: Taiwan’s medical care system is also run on a tight budget to keep costs affordable bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-07-25/an-unusually-deadly-outbreak-in-taiwan-was-driven-by-complacency) ◆ Minister of Health (2021-7-12) avoids reporter's question - how long does it take to apply for having  Remdesivir to save patients.  ◆ CTV news, 2021-6-9: In 2020, only one hospital, NTUH,  can use  Remdesivir, a specific remedy for CovID-19 patients, in earlier 2021, all hospitals need CDC's approval (was rejected quite often) and usually take 8 ~ 12 hours for patients to have it, sometimes it's too late. (In later Jun., gov said they changed the regulation) ◆ China Times, 2021-6-9 : Doctors say increasing deaths are related to inadeguate medication   chinatimes.com/opinion/20210608005991-262101?chdtv   ◆ United Daily, editorial, Jun. 2021: severe patients awaited one week but still failed to have Remdesivir, but CDC said adequate medication for patients. ―  expert comments:  patients are hard to have it, certainly medicines are enough。 (udn.com/news/story/7339/5513808?from=udn-catehotnews_ch2  楊哲銘). 
◆ The Straits Times, 2021-7-10: writer complained that the authorities did not deploy medical staff at quarantine hotels. ... the old woman ... the night before her death to complain about feeling weak and having

trouble breathing. Observers say the lack of action, regardless of the reason, could be the reason for Taiwan being unable to keep cases from skyrocketing in May and June.  ◆ CTV news, 2021-6-30, 19:11:

no one take care high temperature for a long time, the situation is like " waiting for death".
 Taiwan national insurance system was suspected to care money more than human lives and health. ◆ UDN, editorial, 2021-7-15: before end of May, it usually took patient's family 1~2 days to apply for Remdesivir, very possibly too late ◆ Expert in UDN 2021-6-7 advices more investments on national insurance to assure medical quality.


●◆inadequate medical capacity  /   Financial Times (UK), 2021-6-1: Taipei put patients with light symptoms up in the best-equipped hospital beds before the local outbreak. Hospitals were therefore not ready to rapidly take up the large numbers of severe cases arriving now。
ft.com/content/9c0aaf96-28ed-4dee-88a9-38557a200813   (Taiwan failed to take flexible measure, why ?)  China Post 2021-7-14 reports: John Hopkins University noting that 
 “mortality may rise as hospitals become overwhelmed and have fewer resources.”
Dr. Su Yi-Fong (蘇一峰): Taiwan’s high case fatality rate derived from inadequate medical capacity - “Isolation wards are costly and require extensive manpower. Taiwan’s NHI was not compensating life-saving equipment and prone positioning therapy and that intensive care divisions were suffering from a shortage of medical personnel.  chinapost.nownews.com/20210714-2651388    https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html


●◆lacking of testing capabilities  /  Bloomberg, 2021-7-25: Taiwan appears not to have done enough to ramp up testing capabilities, medical system readiness...  bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-07-25/an-unusually-deadly-outbreak-in-taiwan-was-driven-by-complacency

◆lacking knowledge /  Guardian, 2021-6-7: Taiwan authorities hadn’t kept up with new scientific knowledge around virulent new strains.   Taiwan did not give importance to the importance of ventilation , mass testing, or locking down hard and early, instead, they work on police investigation, tracing sys. and precision testing, etc.

 theguardian.com/world/2021/jun/07/a-victim-of-its-own-success-how-taiwan-failed-to-plan-for-a-major-covid-outbreak


　

worst CovID-19 death rate  CTV, 2021-7-12
　

top 8 countries and their death rate
1 Yemen 19.7%
2 Peru 9.3
3 Mexico 9.1
4 Sudan 7.5
5 Syria 7.4
6 Egypt 5.8
7 Somalia 5.2
8 Taiwan 4.8

　

　

　


　

 The web-page's topics   ￭ Taiwan on world news    ￭ Why ? Taiwan has one of world's worst death rates    ￭  ugly Taiwanese     ￭  what crashes Taiwan's "perfect" defense ?       

         

　

               

　

           

pic. left: No.1 "Taiwan CovID-19 death rate" on Bing , 2021-11-9, 2021-10-28, 2021-10-15, 2021-9-7, 2021-8-10, 2021-8-2 (Chinese version), pic. right:  No.1 "Taiwan CovID-19 vaccination rate" (Chinese version) on US Yahoo, 2021-11-9, 2021-10-28, 2021-10-15, 2021-9-7, 2021-8-17, 2021-8-13, 2021-8-6, 2021-7-27, 2021-7-20, 2021-7-8

　

　

pic.: No.1 "Taiwan CovID-19 recovery rate" (Chinese version) on Yahoo, 2021-11-9, 2021-10-28, 2021-10-15, 2021-9-7, 2021-8-17, 2021-8-13, 2021-8-6, 2021-8-1, 2021-7-27, 2021-7-21, 2021-7-15, 2021-6-20

　

　

   

　

★
 ★  World News -  CovID-19  outbreak in Taiwan
　

　

●   Bloomberg, 2021-8-23: Taiwan Rolls Out First Domestic Shots to Bypass Vaccine Woes  bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-08-22/taiwan-rolls-out-first-homegrown-shots-to-bypass-vaccine-woes   BBC: Taiwan rolls out homegrown vaccine amid criticism - The island's health ministry authorised emergency use of the Medigen vaccine last month although clinical trials are yet to be completed  bbc.com/news/world-asia-58301573
 ●  CGTN, 2021-8-29: The local authority... jeopardizing people's lives with a chaotic sluggish vaccination schedule. news.cgtn.com/news/2021-08-29/Taiwan-faces-slow-vaccination-amid-sporadic-local-vaccination-deaths--137wrdNqLAI/index.html

●Reuters, 2021-9-1: China beats Taiwan to the punch in announcing new vaccine delivery   reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/china-says-first-batch-biontech-shots-arrive-taiwan-thursday-2021-09-01/
 ●New York times, 2021-9-2: Taiwan released a statement announcing that the BioNTech vaccine would be prioritized for those between the ages of 12 and 17, with leftover doses administered to those between 18 and 22, the island has fully vaccinated just under 4 percent of its population nytimes.com/2021/09/02/world/asia/taiwan-receives-its-first-batch-of-pfizer-biontech-vaccines-after-a-monthslong-delay.html

●US News, 2021-9-1:   The island's policy is to give out first doses widely    usnews.com/news/health-news/articles/2021-09-01/taiwan-gets-first-pfizer-biontech-vaccines-after-long-delay

●Star advertiser,  Honolulu Hawaii news, 2021-9-3: COVID contact tracing, quarantine key to keeping Taiwan safe   staradvertiser.com/2021/09/03/hawaii-news/covid-contact-tracing-quarantine-key-to-keeping-taiwan-safe/

●Channel News Asia, 2021-9-2: A previously lacklustre vaccination campaign has also picked up.   channelnewsasia.com/asia/covid-19-taiwan-receives-first-batch-politically-charged-vaccines-2151351

●The Diplomat, 2021-9-10: Taiwan’s first real COVID-19 outbreak engendered fierce political debates between the DPP and the KMT   thediplomat.com/2021/09/the-politics-of-taiwans-covid-19-response/

　


●   TIME, 2021-7-25: Taiwan's president Tsai blamed the vaccine shortage on interference from Beijing, which didn’t stop her popularity from plunging...Terry Gou became Taiwan’s vaccine hero, he volunteered to buy five million doses of Pfizer-BNT vaccines for Taiwan —but the government took nearly a month to allow him to begin the process.   brief from  time.com/6083748/taiwan-vaccines-terry-gou-foxconn/
 ●   Independent UK, 2021-7-20:  Taiwan’s tough penalties for violating Covid restrictions can be a problem... While autocratic governments often maintain the same level of restrictions even after they contain the outbreak, ... “Vaccine is the game changer ... strict measures to combat outbreaks, ... won’t end the pandemic,”  independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/taiwan-covid-tutor-sex-pandemic-b1887296.html
 ● Sydney Morning Herald, 2021-7-26: Complacency and inadequate planning by the government of Taiwan’s president, Tsai Ing-wen, has been blamed for it losing control of the Alpha variant, ... At the core of that was a slow vaccination rollout ... (smh.com.au/world/asia/learning-the-hard-way-taiwan-exits-lockdown-and-steps-up-vaccine-race-20210726-p58cyc.html) 

●   Japan Times, 2021-7-19: China’s actions have flustered Taiwan...“mainland China wants to make every effort to help the people of Taiwan defeat the virus.”  The outcome of China and Taiwan’s ‘unrestricted vaccine warfare’looks more and more like it will rest on the will of the Taiwanese people.   japantimes.co.jp/opinion/2021/07/19/commentary/world-commentary/china-taiwans-vaccine-warfare/


 ●   Wall Street Journal, 2021-7-11:  The roundabout arrangement with TSMC and Foxconn  to Buy Covid-19 Vaccines on Behalf of Taiwan’s Government ends a monthslong geopolitical impasse over whether Taiwan could buy vaccines directly from BioNTech . Taiwan is struggling with the pandemic, short on vaccines and locked in a geopolitical fight with China over access to the shot BioNTech SE co-developed with Pfizer Inc   wsj.com/articles/tech-firms-to-buy-covid-19-vaccines-on-behalf-of-taiwans-government-11626020496

● New York Times, 2021-7-12: China’s Taiwan Affairs Office also praised the agreement, though ... if the island’s government “had considered the life, health and well-being of Taiwan compatriots, this issue could have been resolved sooner.”  nytimes.com/2021/07/12/world/asia/taiwan-biontech-vaccine.html
 ● Reuters, 2021-7-11: Foxconn founder Gou said Beijing did not interfere in the talks。BioNTech also confirmed the deal but referred to Taiwan as the "Taiwan region", using the wording preferred by China's government so as not to imply the island is a separate country. reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/taiwans-foxconn-tsmc-confirm-350-mln-covid-19-vaccine-deal-2021-07-11/   

●   BBC, 2021-7-11:Taiwan's government has faced intense pressure from the public to speed up its coronavirus vaccination programme。Last month the government agreed to allow Mr Gou and TSMC to negotiate deals for the vaccines on its behalf  bbc.com/news/business-57801031

●   Fortune, 2021-7-12: Fosun Pharma (China) is currently importing German-made BioNTech doses to distribute in Hong Kong and Macau—not manufacturing the doses itself—but Taiwanese officials have said that buying vaccines from the mainland Chinese firm raises concerns about “security, efficacy, and legal issues.”。fortune.com/2021/07/12/taiwan-covid-vaccine-biontech-deal-fosun-tsmc-foxconn/

　

　

●   Guardian, 2021-7-12: Taiwan has rejected China’s offers as fake altruism. China has accused Taiwan of putting politics above its people theguardian.com/world/2021/jul/12/taiwan-tech-companies-buy-10m-covid-vaccine-doses-in-deal-that-sidesteps-china

●    Reuters, 2021-7-11: The Fosun (The Chinese sales agent for Germany's BioNTech SE) statement referred to the "Taiwan region", terminology favoured by the Chinese government to assert its sovereignty claims rather than imply the island is a separate country...There was no immediate response from Taiwan's government
 reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/tsmc-says-it-is-process-signing-deal-biontech-covid-19-vaccines-2021-07-11/

●  Global Times, 2021-7-11: The successful purchase has met the long-held expectations of the Taiwan public. Without the efforts of influential private companies on both sides to negotiate, and the backing of the relevant Chinese departments behind it, the procurement agreement might not have been completed,... a new round of public lambasting against Tsai Ing-wen's Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) authority for putting political interests above public health protection。globaltimes.cn/page/202107/1228398.shtml

●   engadget,  engadget.com/foxconn-tsmc-taiwan-vaccines-204926440.html  2021-7-11: The two are purchasing the shots from Fosun Pharmaceutical after China allegedly "spiked" Taiwan's bid to directly buy the vaccine.

　


 ●   The Straits Times, Singapore,  2021-7-10: There is increasing concern about lax contact tracing and the mounting death rate   straitstimes.com/asia/east-asia/concerns-over-rising-covid-19-death-rate-in-taiwan-despite-drop-in-cases

●   The Guardian, 2021-7-7: Air VnV: sold-out flights start from Taiwan to Guam for ‘vacation and vaccination’ trips...“So is it that you can get vaccinated abroad if you’re rich, otherwise you have to wait or die in Taiwan,”,“This means the government is incompetent and it’s the people who have to save themselves,”  theguardian.com/world/2021/jul/07/air-vnv-sold-out-flights-start-from-taiwan-to-guam-for-vacation-and-vaccination-trips

●   National Interest,  2021-7-6: As a former role model in coronavirus prevention, Taiwan’s fall off the pedestal was largely due to the current administration’s complacency and myopia, ...Taiwan and the United States’ partners can join together to launch an ambitious new partnership to boost vaccine manufacturing for the world’s benefit ...    nationalinterest.org/feature/taiwan-ready-bolster-america’s-coronavirus-vaccine-arsenal-188973
 ●   Bloomberg, 2021-7-7 : Taiwan Set to Ease Covid Controls Despite Threat From Delta.  Soft lockdown has battered retail spending, hurt employment  bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-07-07/taiwan-set-to-ease-covid-controls-despite-threat-from-delta
●   The Guardian, 2021-6-14: Drew Thompson (a former US Defense officer) said there were scientific and transparency concerns about China’s vaccines, but if the Fosun offer is legitimate, refusing it is “entirely political”. “Pfizer and BioNTech have a huge incentive to ensure that the Fosun product is equivalent, so I would think there is no concern,” he said. “There’s no reason not to take it.” Lev Nachman, a visiting scholar at the National Taiwan University, said it still seemed “in the DPP’s electoral interest not to get any China vaccines”.“It would be foolish to say no, but it would be a measure of last resort.  theguardian.com/world/2021/jun/14/how-taiwan-struggle-for-covid-vaccines-is-inflaming-tensions-with-china
　


●   Bloomberg, 2021-6-28: The underperformance of some of the world’s most prominent democracies in containing the coronavirus, contrasted with the success of authoritarian countries like China, has raised questions over whether democratic societies are cut out for tackling pandemics. bloomberg.com/graphics/covid-resilience-ranking/

●  Global Times, 2021-7-4:The authorities have also failed to standardize the allocation and use of leftover doses, raising questions about lack of a transparent process that fostered privilege and corruption  globaltimes.cn/page/202107/1227797.shtml
 ●  The Diplomat, 2021-7-5: Taiwan’s government currently expanded its powers to collect data during the COVID-19 pandemic. “It requires civic oversight to ensure that the government does not maintain data on citizens after the pandemic ends.  thediplomat.com/2021/07/can-taiwan-provide-the-alternative-to-digital-authoritarianism/

●  AP, Yahoo news, 2021-7-5:  Taiwan's push to shortcut local-vaccine approval sparks debate  news.yahoo.com/taiwans-push-shortcut-vaccine-approval-042258030.html
　


●  New York Times, 2021-6-19:  The United States is shipping 2.5 million doses of Moderna’s Covid-19 vaccines to Taiwan which could add tension to the U.S.-China relationship  nytimes.com/2021/06/19/world/us-taiwan-vaccine.html    CNN, 2021-6-20: Biden announced that the US plans to donate 500 million Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine doses globally as part of his efforts to reassert US leadership on the world stage... Global Times said the move was "paving the way for the US and Taiwan to further escalate their collusion."
 ●  New York Times, news brief, 2021-6-15: outbreaks reversed progress in Taiwan...The tolerance for constrained lives is thinning, and one main factor is contributing to the uncertainty: a lack of vaccines, with campaigns barely underway in many countries. “It’s like we’re waiting in the glue or mud”

●  New York Times, 2021-7-2:  Mr. Chen was among four people who died in a fire at a quarantine hotel... “I don’t know whether I can go out or not. I’m afraid that we will be fined if we go out,”    nytimes.com/2021/07/02/world/taiwan-quarantine-hotel-fire.html

●  Hawaii Public Radio, 2021-7-5: Taiwan Visitors Flock to Guam for Vacation and Vaccinations (ps: Taiwan lacks enough vaccines) hawaiipublicradio.org/asia-minute/2021-07-05/asia-minute-taiwan-visitors-flock-to-guam-for-vacation-and-vaccinations

　


●  Global Times, 2021-7-2: With hundreds of thousands Taiwan residents, including celebrities and politicians, came to mainland to receive their COVID-19 vaccine inoculation as DPP snubbed mainland vaccines...The mainland has successfully brought the epidemic under control   globaltimes.cn/page/202107/1227663.shtml

●  cfr.org, 2021-6-30:  Cross contamination at a quarantine hotel for local pilots led to three weeks of unnoticed community spread. Unprepared hospitals lacked the proper space for infected patients. Lack of testing infrastructure caused diagnosis delays and week-long backlogs of cases... only 7 percent of the population vaccinated to date, it is unlikely that Taiwan will reach its vaccination target of 50 percent of the population by year’s end.  cfr.org/blog/taiwan-confronts-serious-vaccine-shortage

● Global Times, 2021-6-24: professor:  the current fiasco was caused by the "rejection of mass testing," which serves the DPP's face-saving project while sacrificing innocent people's lives. Taipei mayor Ko said that the high CFR indicates a large number of undetected infections… globaltimes.cn/page/202106/1227035.shtml

●  New York Times, 2021-6-16: Taiwan Wants German Vaccines. China May Be Standing in Its way nytimes.com/2021/06/16/business/taiwan-china-biontech-vaccine.html

●   Foreign Policy, 2021-6-11: US provides vaccines to Taiwan, fears provoking China  foreignpolicy.com/2021/06/11/us-china-taiwan-vaccine-diplomacy/

●  VOA news, 2021-6-11:  Taiwanese Panic About Health and income Amid COVID Surge, Vaccine Shortage voanews.com/east-asia-pacific/taiwanese-panic-about-health-amid-covid-surge-vaccine-shortage

●  Guardian, 2021-6-7: Taiwan authorities hadn’t kept up with new scientific knowledge around virulent new strains, the importance of ventilation to combat aerosolised spread, the effectiveness of mass testing, or the examples set by some countries of locking down hard and early.   theguardian.com/world/2021/jun/07/a-victim-of-its-own-success-how-taiwan-failed-to-plan-for-a-major-covid-outbreak

●  Wall Street Journal, 2021-6-5: Taiwan’s Leader Hurt by Recent Setbacks (Covid surge, blackouts...)  wsj.com/articles/taiwans-leader-hurt-by-recent-setbacks-11622907613
 ●  Financial Times, 2021-6-1:  The country was not prepared for a surge of infections ... a large backlog of test samples has formed. This bars the Central Epidemic Command Center from getting a clear, real-time picture of where, how and how fast the virus is spreading — knowledge vital for fighting it. .ft.com/content/9c0aaf96-28ed-4dee-88a9-38557a200813

●  Foreign Policy, 2021-6-4: Taiwan’s Governmental Overconfidence Keeps Creating Crises...Taiwan’s current government has failed to adequately address this (outbreak) issue with suitable urgency   foreignpolicy.com/2021/06/04/taiwan-covid-blackout-nuclear-energy-infrastructure/

　

　

●  New York Times, 2021-5-25: the emergence of more contagious variants in recent months, a relaxation of quarantine rules and a vaccine shortage gave the virus an opening...  The model citizen of the world now has become a bit of a problem child.  nytimes.com/2021/05/25/arts/music/taiwan-covid-shutdown-music.html

●  New York Times, 2021-5-20: This Day Was Bound to Come’ / border controls had shielded it from the worst of the pandemic. But new variants and a slow vaccine rollout gave the virus an opening.  nytimes.com/2021/05/20/world/asia/taiwan-covid-outbreak.html

●  cgtn, 2021-6-1: Taiwan region has been battling a worsening COVID-19 outbreak in recent days as the island deals with a soft lockdown and sees no sign of infections letting up.  news.cgtn.com/news/2021-06-01/Taiwan-scrambles-to-fight-recent-COVID-19-flare-up-10IhtQasTGU/index.html

●  TIME, 2021-5-20: a False Sense of Security, and a Little Secret Tea, Broke Down Taiwan's COVID-19 Defenses  time.com/6050316/taiwan-covid-19-outbreak-tea/

●  CBS, 2021-5-20: Taipei mayor says "The epidemic situation in Taiwan will be like a tight string: Under high pressure, it may snap at any time" cbsnews.com/news/taiwan-covid-cases-previous-success-story-now-record-coronavirus-surge/
 ●  Business Insider, 2021-5-20: A New York Times piece warns that Taiwan's "high walls" may risk "isolating Taiwan economically and politically," and suggests that a strong border policy cannot and should not be a long-term strategy...Taiwan has prided itself in its transparency in containing the virus, yet double standards and stigma still found their way. businessinsider.com/taiwan-covid-19-paradise-health-politics-policy-cdc-2021-5

　

    

　

Bloomberg's the CovID-19 RESILIENCE rankings, 2021-6-28

www.bloomberg.com/graphics/covid-resilience-ranking/
rankings ECONOMY RESILIENCE SCORE PEOPLE COVERED BY VACCINES LOCKDOWN SEVERITY FLIGHT
 CAPACITY		 VACCINATED
 TRAVEL ROUTES
1 U.S. 76 50.3% 47 -20.1% 334
2 New Zealand 73.7 10.3% 22 -31.3% 140.5
3 Switzerland 72.9 41% 48 -69.9% 365.5
4 Israel 72.9 59.1% 22 -63.7% 134.5
5 France 72.8 40.3% 48 -59.3% 346.5
6 Spain 72 41.7% 54 -54.7% 365
7 Australia 70.1 14.2% 50 -35.3% 136.5
8 Mainland China 69.9 40.8% 78 1.7% 121.5
9 U.K. 68.7 57.1% 51 -77.8% 216.5
10 South Korea 68.6 19.2% 50 -46.4% 137
11 Norway 67.9 36.5% 59 -59.9% 133
12 Denmark 67.5 43.2% 50 -73.2% 173.5
13 Singapore 67 44.1% 58 -83% 137
14 Turkey 66.9 28.2% 63 -39.2% 354.5
15 Saudi Arabia 66.9 25.2% 54 -44.2% 349
16 Belgium 66.4 45.3% 51 -62.6% 170.5
17 Finland 66.1 38.1% 48 -83.2% 142.5
18 U.A.E. 65.8 70% 61 -59.9% 253
19 Greece 65.8 36.9% 45 -42.9% 187.5
20 Romania 65 23.2% 43 -33.2% 371

other Asian countries

23 Japan 64.1 14.7% 49 -59.7% 175
30 H.K. 62 23.3% 71 -89% 129
37 Iraq 54.6 1% 77 -41.1% 333.5
39 Thailand 54.1 6.4% 54 -86.3% 157.5
40 Vietnam 53.8 1.6% 77 -48.3% 115.5
42 Iran 53.1 3% 76 -1.2% 108
44 Taiwan. 52.1 4% 69 -91.5% 122
ps: Taiwan ranks No. 40 in report of 2021-7-28

    

Economist, The global normalcy index

economist.com/graphic-detail/tracking-the-return-to-normalcy-after-covid-19
Taiwan's rank in Asia & Pacific countries

1 Hong Kong 96.3
2 New Zealand 87.8
3 Pakistan 84.4
18 S Korea 73.1
19 China 72.9
20 USA 72.8
25 Saudi Arab 70.3
26 Australia 69.5
27 UAE 68.9
30 Japan 65.4
40 Indonesia 58.3
41 Thai 57.8
43 Singapore 55.5
44 Philippines 55.5
46 Vietnam 51.3
48 India 46.5
49 Taiwan 43.7
50 Malaysia 27.3

Nikkei CovID-19 Recovery Index , as of Jun. 30
asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/The-Big-Story/Nikkei-COVID-19-Recovery-Index

　

Taiwan's rank in Asia & Pacific countries

1 China 76.5
6 Qatar 67.0
7 New Zealand 66.5
12 Singapore 65.0
20 Hong Kong 63.0
27 US 60.5
34 Australia 58.0
43 Japan 55.0
48 S Korea 53.0
55 Pakistan 51.5
66 Laos 48
69 Mongolia 47
77 India 45
83 Taiwan 43
100 Cambodia 34
ps: Index ranks on infection management, vaccine rollouts and social mobility   ps2:  Taiwan ranks No. 66 at 2021-7-7
　 　

　

◆ Made-in-Taiwan vaccine jeopardizes human health  

★●

　

◆  Reuters, 2021-7-19:  The vaccine candidate has yet to finish clinical trials and no efficacy data is available, but Taiwan approves Medigen's COVID-19 vaccine candidate and said studies so far have shown that antibodies created by the shot have been "no worse than" those created by AstraZeneca's (AZN.L - UK) vaccine..  ( reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/taiwan-approves-production-medigens-covid-19-vaccine-candidate-2021-07-19/ )

◆  TIME, 2021-7-25:  survey found 82% said the vaccines should go through Phase III trials before getting approved. (time.com/6083748/taiwan-vaccines-terry-gou-foxconn/)   However, a number of Taiwanese people might become "white mouse".
◆  China Times, editorial, 2021-7-20: The government is stalking human lives on local vaccine which is in a black box. (chinatimes.com/opinion/20210719003979-262101?chdtv)  CTV news, 2021-7-5:  Taiwan's law maker 費鴻泰 blasts the government (DPP) prioritizing benefit (from vaccine stock) over human lives.  CTV news, 2021-7-20: expert 陳培哲, 何美鄉 question local vaccine.  law maker 鄭麗文: no other country like Taiwan messes thing up - Medigen's vaccine got high unqualified/failure rate.  United Daily, editorial, 2021-7-19: Taiwan gov placed obstacles on non-gov. org's purchasing western vaccine to save human lives is for harboring local vaccines.  more info. : UDN editorial, 2021-7-21: udn.com/news/story/7338/5615783    UDN, 2021-8-3, editorial :  udn.com/news/story/7339/5645682?from=udn-catehotnews_ch2

◆  New York Times,  2021-5-21 : Taiwan focused on developing its own vaccine, which has yet to pan out, and did not hustle for overseas doses.  (ps: lacking of western vaccines - one among causes leads to Taiwan's high death rate -  double global average )
　

◆

◆

◆ vaccination chaos

1 Next TV News, 壹電視, "年代向錢看", 2021-9-1 Law maker 高嘉瑜 : Many people questioned that the number of first priority group, medical-care staffs,  increased by double , and the second priority group, officials in central & local government, increased by more than double, without any check and supervises, which triggers a lot of controversy and public grievances.(很多人質疑醫護由30+萬暴增至70萬, 第二類由9萬暴增至21萬, 根本沒人把關, 引爆很多爭議與民怨)
2 Formosa TV News, 民視, 2021-9-1 "台灣第一線" High ranking officials and mayors abused the definition of "first-line anti-epidemic personnel", so as to cram in so many their own men, besides, " anti-epidemic system operators" have become vote-brokers or stakeholders in the election campaign coming soon, the definition of "important officials" also sparks controversies,  too many false reports were produced and forwarded to CDC who turned a blind eye to all these cheatings. ("第一線防疫人員"定義為何? 怎麼塞這麼多人進去, "維持防疫體系操作人員"變成選戰樁腳, 重要官員自由心證引爭議, 第二類有太多浮報)
3 CTV News, 中視, 2021-8-30,  2021-8-31, "庶民大頭家" 16:00pm: 鄭立委質問 Law maker 鄭麗文 :  If Taiwan's vaccination policy is to give out first doses widely (as western media such as Associated Press reported)  , it should start from the 10th priority group ( aged 50-65 ),  but first of all CDC gives priority to officials group for their 2nd shot. (如果台灣戰略是要擴大第一劑涵蓋率, 現在應該要從第十類施打起(其他類第一劑打的差不多了), 為什麼又從官員打起? 另日本捐贈我們的AZ, 是否有污染??)
4 戰鬥藍趙 少康  www.youtube.com/watch?v=hKhGXGiEdYA It's ugly and greedy!  DPP law makers give directions to CDC and abuse the power of allocating vaccines to please and draw young people's votes (以BNT配票? 吃相難看!  綠立委下指導棋, 派系治國, 不但搶功, 還搶分配權, 希討好年輕人)
5 CTV News, 中視, 2021-9-2,"庶民大頭家", youtube.com/watch?v=C3KcfEW9Z4M M.D.s: No any country worldwide prioritized vaccine doses for those between the ages of 12 and 22, Western democratic countries prioritized the elders and the vulnerable. Obviously Taiwan's government does it on political purpose.
Even the Emperor of Japan and European VIP politicians line up for vaccination.  Too many queue-jumping in Taiwan ! (醫師: 全世界沒國家把18-22歲列優先施打名單, 顯然蔡政府是政治操作; 連日本天皇, 歐洲政要都是乖乖排隊打疫苗)
6 Global Times, 2021-7-4 The authorities have also failed to standardize the allocation and use of leftover doses, raising questions about lack of a transparent process that fostered privilege and corruption  globaltimes.cn/page/202107/1227797.shtml

◆

◆

　

CTS news: vaccination order should be elders first, to protect weak, high-risk people. 
Taiwan CDC planning to move elders' Pfizer BNT to healthy teenagers obviously is wrong.  Taiwan should learn WHO or Israel's roadmap  - Washington Post: 2021-7-12, Reuters, 2021-7-12, Israel offers third shot of Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine to adults at risk.  Booster for adults with impaired immune systems.  Lancet: Israel offers 1st shot to adults aged 60+.  When Pfizer or Moderna comes in Fall (?), older adults and people with chronic disease should get inoculation first, then follow right order int'l experts advise.  - But I doubt the gov. will do so.

　
　
Law-makers' critiques in TV news 2021-8-9: youtube.com/watch?v=32FLa5VJhH8




United Daily, editorial, 2021-8-10: The government's vaccine policy ― politics and interest first, human lives aside. udn.com/news/story/7338/5662379?from=udn-catehotnews_ch2
 United Daily, editorial, 2021-8-9: This government abuses of public power for private profit while allocating vaccines... the government's major issues - narrow vision, moral degeneracy...   udn.com/news/story/7338/5662376?from=udn-catehotnews_ch2   edi

pic. left: officials scramble to  "privilege vaccination" ... e.g., the vaccination rate of Food & Drug Admin. is about double the total number of its staffs.
pic. left 2: The union of state-own enterprises wrote to president Tsai I. W., then Tsai directed the government to exceptionally inoculate them. 
pic. left 3: This is what our nation leader is ... The gov. is not willing to purchase enough western vaccines, so as to harbor local vaccines which have not passed trial phase III ... officials choose western vaccine instead of local vaccine.
pic. left 4: officials share benefits (vaccination) with their relatives and friends..., as for the public, take your time to await your first dose


pic.: opposition party: we should investigate those using power to get jabbed

　 　


　
China Times, editorial, 2021-8-10: The gov. abuses power and ignores democracy (chinatimes.com/opinion/20210809005080-262101?chdtv)
   pic.: Young people 'threatened' not to vote DPP unless getting jabbed / CTV news, 2021-8-5 youtube.com/watch?v=G_TTECgl8fI

 

ps: several millions old and ill people are waiting for Moderna, but it seemed many privileged people jumped the long queue  / CTV news, 2021-8-5

　

　

◆

    

 ★ Recovery rate, death rate, vaccination rate in Taiwan and in Asian countries   
　
The CovID-19 vaccination race in Asia; Taiwan only about 6% (Guardian, 2021-6-20, Reuters, 2021-6-18), 7% (CDC, 2021-6-25)

statista.com/chart/24463/vaccination-race-asia-coronavirus/

Jun. 14 ~ 19, 2021

 CTV, Jun. 2021: Taiwan is very short of vaccine, but gives officers high priority to inoculate, and does not dare to open the list or even their job titles, the black box was blasted by law makers.  Gov. care selfish things other than elders lives.
country vaccination rate  

　
Taiwanese personality
Singapore 80.19
China 70.21
S. Korea 35.34
Cambodia 34.46
Japan 22.84

　

◆
CovID-19 statistics by country, 2021-6-26
worldometers.info/coronavirus/
country cases death Total recovered recovery rate death rate
Singapore 62,513 35 62,161 99.44% 0.056%
Qatar 221,465 588 219,041 98.9% 0.27%
New Zealand 2729 26 2682 98.28% 0.95%
Macau 52 0 51 98.08% 0
Australia 30,456 910 29,307 96.23% 2.99%
Hong Kong 11,910 211 11,621 97.57% 1.77%
India 30,183,143 394,524 29,193,085 96.72 1.3
Japan 791,082 14,598 758,173 95.84 1.85
China 91,718 4,636 86,608 94.43 5.05
Philippines 1,385,053 24,152 1,305,608 94.26 1.74
S. Korea 154,457 2,012 145,989 94.52 1.3
Pakistan 953,842 22,188 898,944 94.24 2.33
Malaysia 722,659 4,803 657739 91.02 0.66
Myanmar 151,573 3,282 134,779 88.92 0.22
Indonesia 2,072,867 56,371 1,835,061 88.53 2.72
Sri Lanka 249,926 2,862 214,668 85.89 1.15
Thailand 240,452 1870 196,675 81.79 0.78
Taiwan 14,465 610 10,742 74.26% 4.22%
Vietnam 15,152 74 5,949 39.26% 0.49%

　
CovID-19 death rate ,   2021-6-5
world Asia Taiwan
 2.15% till 2021-6-6  1.35%till 2021-6-6  2.3%
(4.2% at 2021-6-25)
worldometers.info/coronavirus/?utm_campaign=homeAdvegas1?%20           worldometers.info/coronavirus/coronavirus-cases/


　

CovID-19 death rate in Taiwan, 2021-7-5 by CDC Taiwan
age group 50~60 60~70 70~80 80~90 90+
account for % of total deaths 7.7% 27.6% 30.5% 22.2% 9.3%
sub-total

7.7%

nearly 90%


　

CovID-19 death rate in Taiwan, 2021-7-5 by CDC Taiwan
age group 60~70 70~80 80+
death % of each ages group 6.6% 15.3% 34.6%

　

　

◆  WHO     www.who.int/news-room/commentaries/detail/criteria-for-releasing-covid-19-patients-from-isolation
 updated recommendations on the criteria for discharging patients from isolation -
The updated criteria reflect recent findings that patients whose symptoms have resolved may still test positive for the COVID-19 virus (SARS-CoV-2) by RT-PCR for many weeks. Despite this positive test result, these patients are not likely to be infectious and therefore are unlikely to be able to transmit the virus to another person.

　

　

    

   
　

How ugly Taiwanese politicians are !?


　

ugly Taiwanese in CovID-19
 CTV, 2021-6-23: Emperor of Japan (aged 60+) was waiting on the queue for vaccination, by contrast,   Taiwanese officials and big guys are really ugly !  

  politics on purchasing vaccines

● The Guardian, 2021-6-14:  Drew Thompson (a former US Defense officer) said if the Fosun offer is legitimate, refusing it is “entirely political”. “Pfizer and BioNTech have a huge incentive to ensure that the Fosun product is equivalent, so I would think there is no concern,”  “There’s no reason not to take it.” Lev Nachman, a visiting scholar at the National Taiwan University, said “It would be foolish to say no,".  theguardian.com/world/2021/jun/14/how-taiwan-struggle-for-covid-vaccines-is-inflaming-tensions-with-china
 Why has Taiwan rejected Fosun's Germany BioNTech vaccine doses ?   Nachman says:  it still seemed “in the DPP’s electoral interest not to get any China vaccines”.   In brief, Taiwan government cares its political benefits more than human lives.

　

● Taiwan's government only got limited vaccine doses, but deliberately to place obstacles (Foxconn says "invisible power") on civil organizations, such as Foxconn founder Gou, Buddhist groups, etc , purchasing and donating western vaccines to feller nationals.  United Daily, editorial, 2021-6-4 criticizes the gov. ignoring increasing deaths could be entitled "state enemy"   udn.com/news/story/7338/5507706?from=udn-catehotnews_ch2 UDN, editorial 2021-6-11 and China Times, editorial, 2021-6-11

　

● Global Times, 2021-6-12: Taiwan scholar, former official sue Taiwan president Tsai and other DPP officials for politicalizing pandemic ― misconduct, desire of profiting themselves and "killing people with policies."  Taiwan's regional authority has rejected 30 million doses of BioNTech-Fosun vaccine preordered by Taiwan pharmacopolists in 2020. At the same time, it fooled its people by saying the importation of vaccines  was obstructed by Chinese mainland intervention.
    an immoral country - ignoring high death rate

● Johns Hopkins University: Taiwan has 8th highest case fatality rate on earth (July 2021).   Taiwan's CDC says 90 per cent of those who died of Covid-19 were over 60 (TTV news, 2021-7-4), The CDC (USA) noted (Jun. 9, 2021) that The risk increases for people in their 50s and increases in 60s, 70s, and 80s... However, Taiwan once eliminated elders aged 65-75 from vaccination list, and later gave those aged 60+  and with chronic disease 10th ~ 6th low priorities to get vaccinated, instead, gov. officers (a huge number, and is expanding "unlimitedly") got 2nd priority, and is getting their 2nd jab, despite most of Taiwanese have not inoculated any, despite WHO's advice : government leaders and admin. personnel should be narrowly interpreted to "a very small number of individuals".  UDN, editorial, 2021-7-18: It's an unique case in democratic countries ! CTV news, 2021-6-23: by contrast, Emperor of Japan now is still waiting on the queue for vaccination ! (CTV : till July 6, '21)  

●  Taiwan plans to move Pfizer vaccine for elders and people with chronic diseases to kids aged 12-18, Taiwan president even intends to move elders' vaccine to those aged 18-23.  Taiwan obviously is an immoral country, by contrast, Associated Press, 2021-7-20 reports many public health experts have raised questions about the morality of inoculating low-risk children at a time when many of the world’s most vulnerable people still lack access to vaccines. the British government thinks health benefits of universal vaccination don’t outweigh the risks for most young people, who typically suffer only mild symptoms of the virus.

   abusing power & privilege

● Lots of top tables using connections to sneak into vaccination, e.g., higher positions of Taiwan's largest telecom company, and largest electric power industry (state-own) did it without punishment. The China Times (chinatimes.com/realtimenews/20210613004215-260402?chdtv ), Next TV news, 2021-6-14:
National Police Agency (police headquarter) and Taiwanese central government abuse power to cover Taiwan Police College students jumping the long waiting line to get vaccinated. 
 Taiwan unfairly allocated
lots more vaccine doses to 高雄
(a low risk area, a ruling party's city, only 61 confirmed cases )  than Taipei or New Taipei city (high risk area). 

●   The order of vaccination Taiwan's government set has some gray zone, which results in politicians (VIPs including county mayor, tycoon on fields of media, industries, business, ranking officials, celebrity, etc) and staffs of all political parties were on the privileged black-list, which triggered public angers, and an open fight among political parties is ongoing.    Next TV, 2021-6-11: Air-force hospital inoculates privileged people.  CTV news (中視), 2021-6-9 : Lawmaker slammed abusing power to vaccination, just like Taiwan's lousy judiciary ("有錢判生 沒錢判死"  ―  "有錢免排  沒錢等埋" ) .   FTV news, 2021-6-9 (8:00pm ~) criticizes Taipei government for vaccination privilege.
●

Chen Hsin General Hospital, etc abuse their privilege to inoculate certain people, Taipei mayor reveals a best-known law-maker was "illegally" lobbying vaccine doses again and again for a clinic, etc.  CTV news 2021-6-23 16:00~: chaos, cheating ... Taiwan is creating a class contradiction, those have good connection can get vaccinated, others just ...... Taiwan became a "The weak are the prey of the strong" jungle.   ●  Not only ruling party abuses its power, pan-blue politicians, such as former premier & vice president Lien Chan, 8 times law maker Huang Chao-shun, former law maker Chang Hsien-yao, Ting Shou-chung, sneaked into vaccination. Taipei city mayor at 2021-7-4 criticizes the country is making "vaccination priority" and declared he hold the list of privileged people in Presidential Office secretly getting vaccinated.

  cared money more than human lives

● United Daily, editorial, Jun. 2021:Taiwanese patients in serious situation waiting for one week but failed to get Remdesivir, a specific remedy for cure coronavirus, in spite of that CDC declaring adequate Remdesivir medication for patients.   In short, the stock is always enough because severe patients can't get it in time.  (udn.com/news/story/7339/5513808?from=udn-catehotnews_ch2  楊哲銘). 

● CTV news, 2021-6-9: In 2020, only one hospital, National Taiwan University Hospital, can use Remdesivir, in earlier this year, all hospitals need CDC's approval (was rejected quite often) and usually take 8 ~ 12 hours to run procedure before patients can have it, sometimes it's too late.
 Taiwan national insurance system, cares money more than feller nationals'  lives.

   cheating
● World media pointed out a relaxation of quarantine rules is a loophole to CovID-19 flare-up.  e.g., New York Times, 2021-5-25: the emergence of more contagious variants in recent months, a relaxation of quarantine rules and a vaccine shortage gave the virus an opening ...nytimes.com/2021/05/25/arts/music/taiwan-covid-shutdown-music.html  France24, 2021-6-13: A sudden surge in cases was traced back to a group of airline pilots who unknowingly brought the Alpha (British) variant of the vgirus into the country just as the government had eased quarantine measures. Quartz, 2021-6-12 has similar sayings.  But the government still passed the buck on WanHua tea houses, according to United Daily, 2021-6-12   https://udn.com/news/story/122173/5527854?from=udn-catelistnews_ch2    United Daily, 2021-6-3, editorial:  How ugly Taiwanese government shift the blames to the China Airline's internal control for coronavirus loophole, ... In addition, they shifted blames about Taiwanese diplomat's suicide in Japan, imported poison pork, train crashed incident, and so on...   (從駐大阪辦事處長自殺、萊豬進口、太魯閣號等一連串事件，人們看到執政當局對錯誤政策皆推託了事 ，政府已因循成風 udn.com/news/story/7338/5504882?from=udn-catehotnews_ch2  )　

●  United Daily, 2021-6-14, editorial: Taiwan president and prime minister made some wrong CovID-19 policy, they should take much more responsibilities ...  (總統和閣揆均知自己才是若干錯誤防疫決策的拍板者，他們要負更大責任) udn.com/news/story/7338/5530668

● Taiwan gov. denied placing obstacles on civil org's purchasing Pfizer vaccine, but law maker 高虹安 said they gave lots of unreasonable requirements, besides, the opposition party said their vaccine purchasing application was turned down by the gov.


  
authoritarian
 ● New York Post  4-25-2020 : Taiwan deals with CovID-19 with "a lot more authoritarian.", "almost everyone is tracked.".  Taiwanese govt. responded at 4-28-2020 that Taiwanese would like to cooperate with our policy.  But the truth is Taiwan's "Big Brother" already sneaked into numerous families in the name of  Epidemic Prevention, by an injunction violating Tort Law and domineering over Constitution (凌駕憲法的侵權禁令) , without having noticed all nationals, in accordance with United Daily, editorial at 5-7-2020.    United Daily 7-16-2020: To keep good record,  Taiwan takes 'ostrich' strategy (avoid mass testing).
 ● China Times, editorial, 2021-6-17:  However, before the outbreak in May 2021, Taiwanese experts already reminded Taiwan's government all those world experts' critiques on today's world media, but local's voices only resulted in internet army's violent attacks therefore everybody kept silent chinatimes.com/opinion/20210616005523-262101?chdtv
●  Next TV news (壹電視), 3-10-2020<年代向錢看>: The president of nurse association (護理師工會理事長): "our freedom of speech" was restricted!! some nurses complained on the net about only having one face mask per day, the internet army came and shouted "you can quit your job if not happy !"  ("網軍:"不爽不要做!"). The fact behind is Doctors did not forward face masks to them.
●  United Daily, 2021-6-18, editorial opinion: ruling party's law-makers and top officials meddled with a deal to purchase Pfizer & BioNTech vaccines therefore now "It’s like we’re waiting (for vaccines ) in the glue or mud" as N.Y. Times (2021-6-15) said.  udn.com/news/story/7338/5540274?from=udn-catehotnews_ch2   Many internet army had already been trained to be "killing machine" to "eliminate" all those not on their side (網軍已經被訓練成殺人機器，看到非我族類一律出草「殺無赦」) udn.com/news/story/7338/5540265?from=udn-catehotnews_ch2
 ●  United Daily (聯合報), 2-5-2020: The online army of government conducts investigation in everywhere to attack all complaints (brief)
 ●  United Daily (聯合報), 2021-6-3: Taiwan gov. and ruling party shift the blame by saying "not remember" then  "there's no any meeting record about relaxing quarantine".   Soon later,  internet army and media hitters manipulated the public opinions (網軍、寫手的各種輿論操作傾巢而出，四處帶風向)。
 ●  China Times , 2021-6-10: online army manipulates populism and outflank the "enemy" - this time to mock civil organization's efforts on purchasing & donating western vaccines.
chinatimes.com/opinion/20210610006123-262101?chdtv
●  Guardian, 2021-6-7: Taiwan authorities hadn’t kept up with new scientific knowledge around virulent new strains,  theguardian.com/world/2021/jun/07/a-victim-of-its-own-success-how-taiwan-failed-to-plan-for-a-major-covid-outbreak
 
Taiwan did not give importance to ventilation , mass testing, or locking down hard and early, instead, they work on police investigation, tracing sys. and precision testings, etc.

   vaccines - firstly - making money

● China Times, 2021-6-13, opinion:   Taiwan's vaccine policy first of all considers top officials' benefit, the company without offering rebate/commission was eliminated, as for fellow citizens' risk of infection or death are not their prime concern    chinatimes.com/opinion/20210612003338-262104?chdtv  (國產的3家疫苗廠中，沒有回扣操弄空間的1家已經先行以「莫須有」的罪名予以排除 ，剩下兩家樂於分享利潤。所以台灣疫苗政策，都是優先考量官員的利潤，至於老百姓感染或死亡風險，已經都不是最重要的。)
 ●  Reuters, 2021-7-19:  The vaccine candidate has yet to finish clinical trials and no efficacy data is available, but Taiwan approves Medigen's COVID-19 vaccine candidate and said studies so far have shown that antibodies created by the shot have been "no worse than" those created by AstraZeneca's (AZN.L - UK) vaccine.

● United Daily, editorial, 2021-6-27: We must remind Taiwan president Tsai and former vice president Chen (陳) of the things - human lives and health are more important than local vaccine industry, specialty and scientific knowledge are more important than scholars' speculation and calculations.  (我們要再度提醒蔡總統與陳建仁前副總統：人民的生命健康比疫苗產業重要、政策的科學佐證比政客的主觀期待重要、疫苗的病毒專業比流行病學者投機算計重要  。udn.com/news/story/7338/5560529?from=udn-catehotnews_ch2)  CTV news, 2021-7-5: lawmaker 費鴻泰 slammed "they" put stock benefit above human lives.
 ● CTV news, 2021-6-29: Taiwan has not worked hard to purchase Novavax in that the gov. intends to harbor two local vaccines using same tech. as Novavax which finished trial phase III already therefore is much better. (以免高端聯亞破局)
    Government's experts
 ● United Daily, editorial, 2021-6-18,  "terrible & fake experts" / CDC's guest medical experts only function as "endorsement" and "execution". (「偽專業」可怕 / 指揮中心及其聘請的一些專家卻扮演「背書」及「執行」的角色，防疫部署如何具有堅實的科學基礎？udn.com/news/story/7338/5540274?from=udn-catehotnews_ch2)

   fake, phony

● GT, 2021-5-23: The public criticize Taiwan's authorities for their suspected concealment of COVID-19 data   globaltimes.cn/page/202105/1224250.shtml  

Global Times 2021-6-4, etc :  "Taiwan authorities have no intention or power to fight the epidemic at all."  "Taiwan's COVID-19 fight has been a mess and the Taiwan authorities can only play tricks to make up for their mistakes"  globaltimes.cn/page/202106/1225426.shtml

●  Guardian (UK), 10-31-2020: Now, Taipei's people browse, busk and greet each other with handshakes and hugs. It feels normal.  However, Taiwan has already "exported" dozens COVID-19 infected cases to a number of foreign countries, not sure yet who should be responsible for this, according to United Daily, editorial, 10-31-2020. https://udn.com/news/story/7338/4977422?from=udn-catehotnews_ch2, and United Daily, editorial, 12-24-2020 : Taiwan's longest Covid-free streak was questioned to be a myth.
 ●  China Times, editorial, 2021-5-18: With an eye to keeping a success story intact, Taiwanese government ignored local experts' advices for mass/full-scale corona-virus tests, otherwise today's flare-up won't happen.  ( Chinese: 最令人憤怒的是，從去年至今，專家不斷呼籲要增加篩檢才能掌控病毒動態，但蔡政府寧願抱著防疫佳績進行大內宣，生怕多篩多出包 ...如果我們之前對高風險人員定期篩檢，進行廣篩及入境普篩，眼前的危機可能根本不會發生。   chinatimes.com/opinion/20210517004162-262101?chdtv   )    

   sad diplomacy

● China Times, 3-18-2021, editorial: Taiwan's vaccine diplomacy is sad -  expert analysis, Taiwan is planning to donate about NT$ 2 hundred million to Paraguay ( last holdout in South America) to get COVID vaccines, therefore, the covering in Paraguay will be 28.6%, in contrast, that in Taiwan is only 0.5%. chinatimes.com/opinion/20210318004639-262103?chdtv

   major business's selfishness

● TTV news,  2021-9-1:  Mitsukoshi dept store lays off an lady employee who was infected and then recovered (Taiwan CDC's term is "end-of-quarantine" ), even her colleague asked some compensation money.
● CTV  2021-6-12: a desk clerk girl in Mitsukoshi dept store, largest Japanese mall in Taiwan,  had CovID-19 symptom ― disorder and coughed for 20 days, the company ignored it, afterwards, she became a confirmed CovID-19 case.  youtube.com/watch?v=uddB_K7B60M  Next TV news, 2021-6-14: some employee said they had not been arranged to take rapid test yet.

● CTV  2021-6-12, 7:34 am: a major TV station ordered its employee (took rapid test, but not yet PCR test) to work under table (without formal clock-in record),  probably therefore some of his colleagues were infected.  The TV station was blasted as "human lives are not its concern (草菅人命)".

　

　

　

The New York Times, 2021-6-18 (nytimes.com/2021/06/18/world/asia/taiwan-migrant-labor-covid.html): ... In Taiwan, some foreign tech workers are confined indoors to tackle an outbreak; Activists say that the measures discriminate against migrant laborers.  Some workers expressed concern that the conditions in the cramped dormitories, ... at quarantine centers. In some of those facilities, activists say that workers were served spoiled food or had no running water. Migrant-labor advocates have criticized the Miaoli government for provoking further fear and stigmatization of foreign workers.

◎

Financial Times (UK), 2021-6-22:  Taiwan accused of locking up migrant workers /  “It has now become extremely common for employers to lock their migrant workers up... ”Electronics groups including Japan’s Canon and Innolux, an affiliate of Apple supplier Foxconn, have been accused of locking up migrant workers in Taiwan as an outbreak of Covid-19 hits the country ... A survey  found that 60 per cent of migrant workers are forbidden from going out in their free time, ... “Discrimination of migrant workers in Taiwan is systemic, but the pandemic has made it a lot worse,”... even warned them against chatting. No central government official has spoken up against the restrictions on foreign workers. Some employers are resorting to scare tactics (your family will not even be able to see your body, etc).   ft.com/content/4269650e-7660-4b80-b294-f81b4368784c

◎

The Guardian (UK), 2021-5-16 (theguardian.com/world/2021/may/16/lockdowns-and-panic-buying-in-taiwan-as-covid-cases-rise): ... the district of Wanhua, where a cluster of at least 100 CovID-19 cases so far has centred on hosted bars and teahouses connected to the sex work industry.   Many foreign laborers from Vietnam, Indonesia, Thailand, Philippines, entered Taiwan by the name of care-taker but actually illegally worked in these porn parlors in Taipei's Wanhua district, now many have escaped to their 'boss' places in middle and southern Taiwan to avoid corona-virus test, which is a very serious situation, Taipei city-councilor 鍾小平 said, according Next TV news, Formosa TV, 2021-5-18, etc.

◎

  Equal Times org., 2021-7-30 (equaltimes.org/taiwan-s-foreign-factory-workers?lang=en#.YQSC6i7iu70)   brief :   Taiwan’s foreign factory workers face rights violations amid latest Covid outbreak.  “We feel like prisoners. It’s like the company controls every aspect of our lives !"    The company confined migrant workers at its Miaoli plant to their dormitories when off duty and imposed epidemiologically questionable quarantine methods.  a worker at KYEC, says she was put into quarantine in early June in a room where co-workers infected with Covid-19 had stayed right before she and her other colleagues moved in.  “The rooms were dirty and not properly disinfected"...when workers need help with improving their living conditions or defending their rights at work, the brokers are often absent. “It is a real system of control.   Even though the government denies targeting lockdown measures towards migrant workers, it did not stop the authorities and companies that did from doing so.


   The web-page's Chinese version ( http://intlhumanrights.com/CovID19inTW.htm  ) has been attacked by pro. hackers, the file in computer was lost again and again so that every update time I have to retype it all, even so, some words were color-changed and lay-out was changed.  Who has the motive to do this ?  perhaps obviously.  Another medical-related web-page (https://courageworld.ch/TaiwanHospitalsMD.htm ),  ranking No.1 "physicians in Taiwan" on US Google and other largest search engines has been attacked from time to time. The backup site is http://intlhumanrights.com/TaiwanHospitalsMD.htm. 

　
　

★

★  US CDC advice:
　

www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/need-extra-precautions/older-adults.html

Updated June 9, 2021
Increased Risk of Severe Illness from COVID-19

Older adults are more likely to get very sick from COVID-19. Getting very sick means that older adults with COVID-19 might need hospitalization, intensive care, or a ventilator to help them breathe, or they might even die. The risk increases for people in their 50s and increases in 60s, 70s, and 80s. People 85 and older are the most likely to get very sick

Other factors can also make you more likely to get severely ill with COVID-19, such as having certain underlying medical conditions. If you have an underlying medical condition, you should continue to follow your treatment plan, unless advised differently by your health care provider.

　

★  Taiwan's chaos :

　

   Experts like Ih-Jen Su (蘇益仁) a Taiwanese medical researcher, distinguished investigator and former chief in medical gov. etc in CTS (華視) news at 2021-6-25 said that the vaccination order in other countries basically is by age, and by job of front-line CovID-19 fighting (e.g., MD, nurse, staffs in hospitals and nursing houses), Taiwan should do the same thing - to give people above age 50 or 60 (account for 97-98%% deaths and most severe cases) shots as soon as possible.
 Former chief of medical gov. and  medical expert 楊志良 (zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/楊志良)  said in CTV news (2021-6-29, 20:46~) that No.1 priority to get vaccinated should be MDs and nurses, No.2 should be people with critical illness, then just follows the age.  CTV news reports many democratic countries give weak people with critical illness and cancer second priority, but they are in second-last group in Taiwan, Taiwan did not follow WHO vaccine prioritization map, the proportion of Taiwan's anti-epidemic is : 70% dealing with politics, 30% dealing with CovID19.  
However, Taiwan's government was so original that to divide Taiwanese population into more than 10 priority groups.  Two among them are especially tricky groups, one is officials,  many of them are nothing to do with Corona-virus fighting, another is those trying to cut in line by their connections...  and was accepted by the government.  CDC now is trying to give officials 2nd inoculation while about 93% population have not been inoculated even once.

Former law-maker Lin, Yu-fang publicly asked in CTV news (2021-6-29): which DPP party's people in power has not got vaccinated ?   In return,  DPP should give publicity to the list of KMT politicians were secretly inoculated by using their connections.  All Taiwanese voters have the rights to know the true colors of Taiwanese politicians.

Taiwan is so different from other major countries.  An ugly system makes people ugly !

　


●  PS 1:   Global Times, 2021-6-18: Most of those who died were aged between 60 and 90, and some had a history of chronic diseases....  CDC (Taiwan) 2021-6-11:  70% severe patients are ages 60+ (ages 80+ occupies for 10%, ages 70-80 : 25%, 60-69 : 35%), only 4% of severe patients are ages 39- ,  90+% deaths are ages 60+。CDC 2021-7-5 shows about same statistics.  But the gov. gives elders and weak people with chronic record 6th~10th priority for vaccination, too behind and too dangerous for them.


 ●  PS 2:  Taiwanese government insists keeping members (160 thousands persons) of 2nd priority group in a black box.  At least one thing we heard is more than one thousands engineers of 漢翔(AIDC) were included in the priority group to get vaccinated.  The problems are:
     (1) a non-governmental company used the name and quota of Ministry of Defense to get the jab.
     (2) They are nothing to do with epidemic/pandemic prevention mission at all, which violates the regulation and probably the law.
     (3) AIDC works on aircraft fighters.  But western experts comment Taiwan's air force is of no use to defend Taiwan. e.g., Forbes 2021-4-19: for AIDC... is it worth it to spend extra billions on planes that might get blown up on the ground five minutes after war breaks out?  NBC, 2021-3-27: Taiwan's air force is wiped out within minutes;  Foreign Policy, 2020-10-19: Taiwan's advanced aircraft, ships, and tanks operating from large bases—precisely the kind of forces that China can now destroy with a surprise air and missile barrage.
      Others in group prior to aged 60+ and chronic disease are military paper-work staffs, not front-line police , MP etc, all need to stand back in the queue to avoid more and more elders deaths and critical condition.   Taiwan's system makes a chaos, and degrades the morality of so many people scrambling for vaccination. 

　

　

★

 ★ News -  Taiwan government is state enemy !  if it still block civil organization to purchase western vaccines  
 
Taiwan stop Taiwanese to buy western vaccines 
●  United Daily, editorial, 2021-6-20: Taiwanese government's obstacles remain ...  (政府設障過頭，民間憤怒至極，政府才逐漸鬆口，但關卡依舊 The public's anger push president Tsai to have meeting with Foxconn founder and TSMC ) udn.com/news/story/7338/5544385

●  Reuters, WHBL, editorial, 2021-7-2: Foxconn, and TSMC reached initial agreements to buy 5 million doses each of BioNTech SE’s COVID-19 vaccine...the German government, which has said it has been trying to help Taiwan obtain the BioNTech vaccines   whbl.com/2021/07/02/exclusive-taiwans-terry-gou-tsmc-reach-initial-agreements-for-biontech-vaccines-sources/
●  Reuters, 2021-6-18: Foxconn founder asks Taiwan to allow vaccine talks with Chinese firm  reuters.com/article/healthcoronavirus-taiwan-foxconn/refile-foxconn-founder-asks-taiwan-to-allow-vaccine-talks-with-chinese-firm-idUSL3N2O00CZ

However, Taiwan's government  deliberately to place obstacles (certificate of authorization is needed) for non-governmental organisations, such as Foxconn founder Gou, and some Buddhist groups, etc  to purchase Western vaccines, but according to the law (《藥事法》和《特定藥物專案核准製造及輸入辦法》) , in case of emergency, certificate of authorization is not required.  United Daily, editorial, 2021-6-4 criticizes creating difficulties for Foxconn is to save Taiwan government's political face, ignoring more and more deaths, the officials could entitles 'state enemy'.  udn.com/news/story/7338/5507706?from=udn-catehotnews_ch2   UDN, editorial 2021-6-11 and China Times, editorial, 2021-6-11 again slam gov. trying every efforts on blocking civil org. to donate western vaccines. 

udn.com/news/story/7338/5524888?from=udn-catehotnews_ch2    If so, the officials and politicians are suspected to commit murder.   Foxconn spokesperson (2021-6-18) points about 3 weeks passed, there's a "invisible power" caused "technical issues", and asked to meet Taiwan president Tsai.

●  Reuters, 2021-6-18: Taiwan to allow Foxconn's Gou, TSMC to negotiate for vaccines  reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/foxconn-founder-asks-taiwan-allow-vaccine-talks-with-chinese-firm-2021-06-18/

　

★

    ★   gov. policy - Rush for leftover COVID-19 doses leads to critiques of the gov.
　

◆◆US CDC(cdc.gov/vaccines/covid-19/info-by-product/pfizer/index.html) advises :

 Discard vial when there is not enough vaccine to obtain a complete dose. Do NOT combine residual vaccine from multiple vials to obtain a dose

　

Taiwan decides to open daily residual vaccine to the public ―  but without any measure and appropriate regulation, which triggers lots of questions of privilege vaccination.
 ◆◆ News reports (2021-6-26) this leads to chaos in entire Taiwan. Tai-Nan city mayor criticizes this will results in privilege vaccination everywhere.  FTV news (民視), 2021-6-25 15:00~: expert advises to get vaccinated by age order which could avoid privilege vaccination.

◆◆ Taiwan government either is short of ability to handle this?  or has cheating blood in their vessel? - intentionally creates unfairness / offers favor to certain people.
 ◆◆ Global Times, 2021-7-4: Taiwan's Hualien county opened reservations for Moderna's leftover doses in the multi-dose vials, however, this led to a fierce scramble for the vaccine. Some lined up the night before, and some rushed in a "100-meter dash" once the station opened, while some even fell down in their haste..."Are these people dogs snatching grain? It's really a tragedy for Taiwan that the fight for vaccines has come to this height (brief)
　

    

　

　

       

pic.: No.1 "Taiwan CovID-19 recovery rate" (Chinese version) on MetaGER.de of Germany, 2021-8-1, 2021-6-21

 pic.: No.1 "Taiwan CovID-19 recovery rate" (Chinese version) on Bing, 2021-8-11, 2021-8-1, 2021-7-15, 2021-6-22

　

　

　

    

★

    

　

What crash CovID-19 defense  ?

★
 What breaks down the world’s most vaunted COVID-19 defense (including the world’s longest streak of case-free days) ?

    

(1)  Double standard on "party pilots" 
    Taiwan's careless or unprofessional double standard leads to a big loophole.  Bloomberg, 2021-5-18: Taiwan has imposed a strict 14-day quarantine on arrivals for more than a year.  But some people are exception, BBC, 2021-5-20:  Taiwan relaxed its quarantine requirements for non-vaccinated airline pilots from an initial 14 day period, to five days - and then, just three days.  The Guardian (UK), 2021-5-16:  the short quarantine period for airline pilots and staff ... amid allegations that infected individuals went out socialising.   Worse than that, according to Apple Daily 2021-5-14, a lot earlier than this major outbreak, many pilots already violated the quarantine regulation and went everywhere,  (appledaily.com/forum/20210514/DZS4TKAE2FHP5DWTZK75HIMGR4/) .  UDN, 2021-6-1, editorial: Foreign pilots lived with local people in Novotel Hotel for 2 months which became a big loophole (udn.com/news/story/7338/5499361).  TIME, 2021-5-21:  police closely monitored travelers to ensure they adhered strictly to quarantines and contact tracers pried deeply into infected people’s movements to ensure close contacts were found and isolated.  New York Post  4-25-2020 : Taiwan deals with CovID-19 with "a lot more authoritarian.", "almost everyone is tracked.".  However, this was not the way to treat pilots, etc.  When things look no good, all China Airlines crews were ordered into rolling 14-day home quarantines. But it was probably too late. 
    CTV news, 2021-5-21 reports DPP law maker 范雲 held a coordinative meeting for relaxing pilots' quarantine period , should be responsible for a CovID-19 flare-up.
     The government ignored strong advices, such as : an expert criticized this as "playing with fire",  former medical chief 楊志良 warned (TVBS, 1-17-2021) Taiwan's epidemic prevention will fail if gov. continues to take strategy of political manipulation and double standard... soon after a study published in the medical journal Lancet (Oct. 1, 2020) estimates the number of Taiwanese infected with CoronaVirus by July 2020 is 25 times more cases than Taiwan's official number.

    

(2)  Lion King in ‘sexy tea’ 
   Bloomberg, 2021-5-18:  Sexy Tea, the Lion King and Taiwan's Lost Innocence.  The Chinese term of "sex tea", "摸摸茶" means "paws all over hostess body", Taiwan was or is No.1 prostitution country  (percentage of Taiwanese prostitutes - No.1 in Asia;  percentage of Taiwanese patrons paid for sex - No.1 in the world),  given Japan's adult entertainment industry a hotbed of infections, no wonder corona virus has been spreading in Taiwan.  Infected pilots introduced a more transmissible U.K. variant, whose spread was then accelerated through a network of “hostess teahouse (bar)”.   The "Lion King", a Lions Clubs International former president came the often poorly ventilated and dimly lit hostess tea house ( or say A-gong diam (阿公店) ) for adult entertainment  (『人跟人的連結』said by Health Minister , 2021-5-13) , afterwards, two aged 50+~60+ hostesses working in the CovID-19 breeding ground were founded CoronaVirus infected , soon the virus spread the whole red light district,  where a cluster of at least 100 cases has centred on teahouses.   Patrons were reluctant to be associated with this sort of low-end infamous porn parlors, making contact tracing more difficult.   Next TV news 2021-5-18:  Many young foreign laborers from Vietnam, Indonesia, Thailand, Philippines, etc entered Taiwan by the name of care-taker but actually illegally worked in tea houses, now have escaped to middle & southern Taiwan to avoid corona-virus test, which made situation worse, said Taipei city-councilor 鍾小平 .   Reuters, 2021-5-14: Taipei's bars, nightclubs, saunas and karaoke halls would close for rising CovID risk level.   But it is bit too late ~ 
TIME, 2021-5-21:  Officials say cases in Novotel Hotel at int'l airport cluster, the Lions Club cluster, and the cluster of cases in Wanhua’s red light district were all infected with the same strain of the coronavirus—suggesting they have a common source.  (time.com/6050316/taiwan-covid-19-outbreak-tea/)

    

(3)  Complacency, carelessness, falsification 

◆ Bloomberg, 2021-5-18: Covid complacency ...  have seen the bubble burst on one of the pandemic’s great success stories.    bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2021-05-17/taiwan-loses-covid-innocence-with-partying-pilots-and-a-lion-king 
◆ The China Times, editorial, 2021-5-18: With an eye to keeping the success story intact, Taiwanese government ignored experts' advices for mass tests, and would rather did propaganda by the good records in epidemic prevention  ( Chinese: 最令人憤怒的是，從去年至今，專家不斷呼籲要增加篩檢才能掌控病毒動態，但蔡政府寧願抱著防疫佳績進行大內宣，生怕多篩多出包 ...如果我們之前對高風險人員定期篩檢，進行廣篩及入境普篩，眼前的危機可能根本不會發生。   chinatimes.com/opinion/20210517004162-262101?chdtv   )   
 ◆ United Daily, editorial, 2021-5-18:  Taiwanese government's so called "deployment in advance" is nothing but distributing face masks by real name, and has no achievements on getting vaccine doses or intensive corona-virus tests.  We heard many times earlier Taiwanese tourists/visitors were found corona-virus infected in some other countries' airport , Taiwan's admin. always argued those foreigner's tests were not accurate.    (  Chinese:  說穿了，蘇內閣所謂「超前部署」僅放在口罩實名制分配；其後，對於該循序推進的加強篩檢、疫苗取得等，便踏步不前。稍早，台灣曾多度傳出「輸出」確診者，被鄰國驗出染疫；陳時中皆推稱是國外檢驗不準確，絕少自省，更輕率對機師檢疫擅開小門。日積月累，這類隱形感染者或輕症患者便在國內四處傳播病毒，迄今終引爆查無源頭的大規模感染。 udn.com/news/story/7338/5465373?from=udn-catehotnews_ch2 )
◆ TIME, 2021-5-21:  Many Taiwanese patients have only minor symptoms or none at all and don’t know they’re spreading COVID-19 until it’s too late.  One year ago, according to Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease, USA, "somewhere between 25% and 50%" of people infected with the new coronavirus may never show symptoms or fall ill — but can still transmit the illness to others (4-15-2020, Business Insider).

◆

　 Why Taiwan avoids mass tests ?  the reason might be among ~

◆  don't want to lose the competition with China /  China was very good at fighting CovID-19 : Lancet (2020-8-1) : containment measures implemented in China, and Taiwan have reduced new CovID 19 cases by more than 90%...

◆  to keep good int'l image /  in addition to American media, Euro.'s Le Monde, editorial, 2021-4-16 also applauded for Taiwan " Or l’image internationale de l’île s’est beaucoup renforcée ces derniers mois, grâce à ses propres atouts – une gestion remarquable du Covid-19, ..."  (lemonde.fr/idees/article/2021/04/16/taiwan-rester-ferme-avec-la-chine-sans-la-provoquer_6077007_3232.html)

◆  to win public support    ◆  money factor    ◆  medical capacity (official phrase)

    

(4)  vaccine shortfall

New York Times, 3-14-2021:  amid vaccine campaigns elsewhere. Taiwan officials have been slow to procure and distribute vaccines ... 
The New York Times says Fewer than 1% of Taiwan's 24 million residents have been vaccinated, making it the least vaccinated population in Asia and one of the 10 lowest-ranking places in the world with at least 100,000 people.
BBC, 2021-5-28, bbc.com/news/world-asia-57246914   : Taiwan must choose between virus and politics; 

If Taiwan accepts Chinese vaccines, it could appear as though Beijing is more able to look after the people of Taiwan than the island's leaders, otherwise Taipei might look as though it is disregarding the health of its own population.

CTV news, United Daily, 2021-5-21: Some in pan-Green including law maker said the risk of vaccination is higher than that of being infected.
ps: pls. note the next 2 lines are a hard copy (jpg), because the original lines were attacked by hacker - which country has no freedom of expression ??

Taiwan lacks vaccines R&D ability.  New York Times, 2021-5-20: "Taiwan got started extremely early"; but nothing on the market yet.   Political considerations and benefit calculations (UDN, editorial, 2021-5-20 "政治及利益算計交雜") etc stop Taiwan to have Pfizer vaccines , which was a "good for politicians themselves but bad for the nationals" operation.  The overall vaccine-purchasing schedules was behind 60~70 countries (Mar. '21).  BBC, Yahoo, 2021-5-20:  Professor Chen Chien-jen (former Taiwan vice president) : "We have tried our best to purchase vaccines from international companies but we didn't get much".   Global Times, 2021-5-18: the (Taiwan) island did have the chance to import the mainland-made vaccines, which are broadly used worldwide and recognized by the World Health Organization (WHO), but due to the DPP authorities' politicization over the issue, the island has refused to accept the Chinese-made vaccines and caused its embarrassing shortage.  globaltimes.cn/page/202105/1223732.shtml  
In middle May, President of Honduras complained the US would rather hoard huge number of vaccines that are going to expire than lend a helping hand to countries in need.  Soon afterwards, US declared to send US-approved vaccines abroad to help the world (NBC news, 2021-5-18).   Financial Times 2021-5-19 : US to send vaccines to Latin America after Taiwan ally warns of pivot to China.   Now, Taiwan mobilises diplomats to seek out COVID-19 shots, according to Reuters at 2021-5-18.  reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/taiwan-says-it-is-talks-covid-19-vaccines-us-2021-05-18/     

    

　 　

◆  Bloomberg, Yahoo, 2021-5-24:  World’s Supply of Chips Is in Danger Unless Taiwan Gets Vaccines  finance.yahoo.com/news/world-supply-chips-danger-unless-210020715.html

◆  Reuters, Yahoo, 2021-5-22: Taiwan presses the US for CovID-19 vaccine help    news.yahoo.com/taiwan-presses-u-covid-vaccine-005424915.html

◆  Reuters, 2021-5-24: Pressure to accept China vaccines intensifies as Taiwan battles COVID surge  reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/pressure-accept-china-vaccines-intensifies-taiwan-battles-covid-surge-2021-05-24/

◆  Reuters, 2021-5-22: China's Fosun says willing to provide BioNTech vaccines to Taiwan   reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/chinas-fosun-says-willing-provide-biontech-vaccines-taiwan-2021-05-22/
　

         

●  New York Times, 2021-5-21: Taiwan focused on developing its own vaccine, which has yet to pan out, and did not hustle for overseas doses.

　

●  United Daily, 2021-5-30, editorial : The reason that Taiwanese government passively purchased western vaccines is to harbor local vaccines which is uncertain at present ...   https://udn.com/news/story/7338/5495267

　

●  China Times, 2021-5-30, editorial: It's very bad for the government to say vaccines made in Taiwan will be available in the coming July.   Taiwan's vaccine has not done clinical trial phase Ⅲ，which is the most critical phase for effectiveness and safety.    full text :    https://www.chinatimes.com/opinion/20210529003415-262101?chdtv

　

●  United Daily, 2021-5-30 : Taking advantage of CovID-19 flare-up to make fortune is current situation in Taiwan.  Without a proper channel to satisfy demands of politicians, purchasing western vaccines will fail even having a good channel to obtain vaccines.   full text:     https://udn.com/news/story/121823/5493969?from=udn-catehotnews_ch2 張競

　

●  according to Reuters, Yahoo, 2021-5-30, Taiwan gov. had an agreement with local vaccine companies for 20 million doses inance.yahoo.com/news/1-taiwan-says-hasnt-given-075900097.html  ; later on Taiwan president denied the gov. blocking civil org. to purchase vaccines from the west, and no illegal insider trading, no officials speculating in stocks (went up 13 times)  .  Some local media questioned about those.  chinatimes.com/opinion/20210531003036-262101?chdtv  dw.com/zh/台湾购千万二期国产疫苗-在野党质疑安全性/a-57723862  

　

●  United Daily, 2021-6-1, editorial : The stock price of Moderna COVID‑19 Vaccine or Germany ＢＮＴ only went up 10 + times,  Taiwan's 高端 vaccine has not finished clinical trial phase , its stock price rises dozens of times    udn.com/news/story/7338/5501995?from=udn-catehotnews_ch2

    

　

(5)  being rebellious and lacking health conscious

Bloomberg, 2021-5-18: The exception has been among older citizens, who are often regarded in Taiwan as viewing themselves above the law. ... many are considered less health conscious.  bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2021-05-17/taiwan-loses-covid-innocence-with-partying-pilots-and-a-lion-king   CTV news, 2021-5-19: Some old citizens gathering in park were not willing to wear face mask properly.  In addition to older people, young people without wearing mask were everywhere, e.g., largest department store (see pic. below), largest market, and 7-11 ... New York Times, 2021-5-20: more people had been leaving their masks at home and abandoning social distancing (before the outbreak).   TIME, 2021-5-21:  Crowds of thousands of people were allowed to return to concerts, baseball games and religious festivals.  Large meals became increasingly common, and masks became rarer as months passed with no local infections.  After the outbreak, SET i News, 2021-5-20 reports that more than 10 young insurance employees gathering in a park were fined USD 10,000.
    
(6)  no mass tests   The China Times, editorial (6-6-2020, 6-25-2020) points out that Taiwan rejects mass tests, even small-scale tests, the number of test per million people is 3000+, ranked world No. 138, about same level as that of African countries, even African Luanda tested double the number of Taiwan's.  According to Our World in Data, in mid-Feb. 2021, 0.57 virus tests per 1,000 people in Taiwan,  by contrast, 6.21 in Singapore, 8.68 in UK.

    

(7)  politicians' moral issues

◆  United Daily News, editorial, 2021-5-13: being slack or negligent , concealment ... e.g., for systematic carelessness or intentionally burying the truth, Taiwanese government dropped some messages which should be sent to local government or execution units.   (懈怠、雙標、隱瞞，政府才該收心！例如，該完全隔離的樓層卻不徹底執行，容許部分空間混住互通，這是散漫。例如，該通知地方政府或基層執行單位的訊息，卻因系統性的疏忽或意圖掩蓋疫情真相而不通知，使得執行無法落實，這是隱瞞。    udn.com/news/story/7338/5453598 )

◆ China Times, editorial, 2021-5-17:  The government is still trying to hide the location of some infected cases ( 中央流行疫情指揮中心還在隱瞞個案位置，不再公布足跡， 現在因應得一團亂，完全沒有章法，還企圖粉飾太平)。  chinatimes.com/opinion/20210517004162-262101?chdtv

◆ United Daily News, editorial, 2021-5-16: The more critical situation is, the more vague and brief information the gov. publicizes ( 疫情愈是戰雲密布，指揮中心發布的訊息反而變得愈發簡略而含糊，哪些人因何確診、足跡為何，全都避而不談)  udn.com/news/story/7338/5462692

    

(8)  never learn lessons

   BBC, Yahoo, 2021-5-20:  Taiwan failed to look at Japan's adult entertainment industry - which at one point was also a hotbed of infections - before it was ordered shut.  Prof. Alex Cook of the National University of Singapore (NUS), Taiwan's situation is a "a reflection of the constant risk of a strategy that puts too much emphasis on border control and not enough on measures to prevent within country spread".  news.yahoo.com/covid-19-went-wrong-singapore-232207544.html    Taiwan failed to take lessons from other countries' mistakes, such as CovID-19 surge in foreign laborers circle and long-term care system, now become a lesson for the world.    CNBC, 2021-6-1: Taiwan’s latest Covid-19 outbreak is a lesson that a containment strategy aiming for zero local transmission may not be sustainable in the long term.  cnbc.com/2021/06/01/covid-public-health-prof-on-taiwan-outbreak-vaccination-progress.html

    

     

　

　

current difficulties

　

◆￭medical tech.     The CovID-19 recovery rate of Singapore is about 99.1 %, by contrast, Taiwan is 18.6% (2020~2021-5-17) , expert 賴明詔 said Singapore's medical tech. is better, and culture is different, however, other major countries of Asia & Pacific are much better than Taiwan does, e.g., New Zealand 98.2%, Hong Kong 97.6%, China 94.5%, Korea 92.7%, Japan 88.9%.  There's no Taiwanese hospital included in Newsweek' s  "World Best Hospitals 2020", but Singapore, Japan, Korea, India, etc did.  The number of deaths is increasing, and is getting worse and worse, Taiwan's position will drop in the next Bloomberg CovID-19 resilience ranking.

    

 CovID-19 Taiwan deaths - Google Search  CovID-19 recovery rates in Asia & Pacific countries
  sources : Wikipedia, NewYork Times etc,    2021-5-27
country cases recovered recovery rate
Singapore 61916 61360 0.991
New Zealand 2670  2623 0.982
Hong Kong 11836 11561 0.9767
UAE 561K 541K 0.964
Macau 51 49 0.96
Saudi Arabia 445K 427K 0.959
Australia 20575 19720 0.958
China (mainland) 91038 86075 0.945
Korea 138K 128K 0.9275
Japan  731K 650K 0.889
Malaysia 533K 465K 0.872
Vietnam 6086  2853 0.468
Thailand 138K 26873 0.194
Taiwan 6091 1133 0.186

    

◆￭Vaccines   CNN, 2021-5-17:  The island has one of the lowest vaccination rates in the world, with fewer than 1% of its 23 million-strong population inoculated.   edition.cnn.com/2021/05/17/asia/taiwan-covid-outbreak-intl-hnk/index.html

Reuters, 2021-5-21: Taiwan presses U.S. health secretary on COVID vaccines. But, New York Times, 2021-5-21: Taiwan focused on developing its own vaccine, which has yet to pan out, and did not hustle for overseas doses.  BBC, 2021-5-20: "We have tried our best to purchase vaccines from international companies but we didn't get much. The only way to sustain our supply is to manufacture ourselves, this is
CTV news, 2021-6-29: Taiwan has not worked hard to purchase Novavax in that the gov. intends to harbor two local vaccines using same tech. as Novavax which finished trial phase III already therefore is much better. (以免高端聯亞破局)

◆￭medical capacity   China Times, editorial, 2021-5-20: Taiwan's government told the public that comparatively we don't have too many infected cases till now, but on the other hand, Taiwan's medical system is almost collapsed (chinatimes.com/opinion/20210519006282-262101?chdtv).  United Daily, 2021-5-18, editorial (udn.com/news/story/7338/5465373?from=udn-catehotnews_ch2) , Next TV news, 2021-5-18: There's no any ambulance to pick up Corona-virus infected patients for 2 days, Taipei gov. said all hospital-wards are full.  Next TV news, 2021-5-19: Taiwan's best hospital NTUH urges infected patients not to come its emergency room in that the capacity is full.   Many infected patients were asked to stay at home and have antipyetics to decrease symptoms, which might endanger healthy people.  CTV news 2021-5-18: Taiwan's medical capacity is not enough for CovID-19 only a few days after the major outbreak. ...  Besides, Taiwan is worrying about where the "Mobile cabin hospital" (temporary field hospital) are (2021-5-18).

◆￭testing    New York Times, 2021-5-20: testing only those who are showing symptoms or may have come in contact with infected people is an excessively “frugal” approach.  Expert urged the government to consider locking down Wanhua District and testing all residents. nytimes.com/2021/05/20/world/asia/taiwan-covid-outbreak.html   United Daily, opinion, 2021-6-26 brief  : 17 Taiwanese detected negative were found infected in China's airport, the most serious case is a Taiwanese was found infected with India variant while entering Macau.

◆￭quarantine  United Daily, editorial, 2021-6-25  udn.com/news/story/7338/5556358?from=udn_ch2_menu_v2_main_cate : Taiwan never learns, and repeats low-class mistakes - full-scale test in airport for visitors is too late, quarantine has not executed well, so that two people from South America expanded probably Lambda virus (ps: should be Delta variant) to taxi driver and their families in Taiwan, etc.  

◆￭high walls    Business Insider, 2021-5-20: A New York Times piece warns that Taiwan's "high walls" may risk "isolating Taiwan economically and politically," and suggests that a strong border policy cannot and should not be a long-term strategy...Taiwan has prided itself in its transparency in containing the virus, yet double standards and stigma still found their way. businessinsider.com/taiwan-covid-19-paradise-health-politics-policy-cdc-2021-5

　

Bloomberg CovID-19  Resilience Ranking
Rank Economy total deaths per million 1-month fatality rate % people covered by vaccines %
1 New Zealand 5 0 4.8
2 Singapore 5 0.2 29.9
3 Australia 36 0 7.1
4 Israel 740 4 58.3
5 S Korea 38 0.7 5.4
6 Finland 168 0.5 24.1
7 Norway 144 0.4 21.9
8 Denmark 433 0.1 26.1
9 China (mainland) 3 0 17.8
10 HK 28 1 14.3
11 UK 1885 0.5 45.4
12 UAE 167 0.2 56.3
13 US 1782 1.7 44.5
14 Japan 97 1.5 3.2
15 Taiwan 1 0.2 0.6
https://news.gtp.gr/2021/05/25/greece-moves-up-on-bloombergs-covid-resilience-ranking/

　

　

The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices’ Updated Interim Recommendation for Allocation of COVID-19 Vaccine

2021-1-1
　

cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm695152e2.htm

　

1) health care personnel§ and 2) residents of long-term care facilities be offered COVID-19 vaccination first, in Phase 1a of the vaccination program (2). On December 20, 2020, ACIP recommended that in Phase 1b, vaccine should be offered to persons aged ≥75 years and frontline essential workers (non–health care workers), and that in Phase 1c, persons aged 65–74 years, persons aged 16–64 years with high-risk medical conditions, and essential workers not recommended for vaccination in Phase 1b should be offered vaccine.
　

　

　

　

    

　

Why successful before ?

　

  BBC, 2021-5-16:   Taiwan's impressive success battling the coronavirus has been largely attributed to early and strict border controls, a ban on foreign visitors and mandatory quarantine for all Taiwanese returning home   bbc.com/news/world-asia-57135647       

 China Times, 2021-5-16:   Taiwan has rejected full-scale testing (普篩).     chinatimes.com/opinion/20210515004112-262101?chdtv    This may be one among reasons to a successful record.    

       

　

tips - Two face masks better than one ?


Guardian  (theguardian.com/world/2021/jan/29/are-two-face-masks-better-than-one-covid): wearing a medical-grade mask under a more aesthetically pleasing cloth mask, was this week backed by Dr Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, "If you have a physical covering with one layer, you put another layer on, it just makes common sense that it likely would be more effective" CDC: The cloth mask should push the edges of the disposable mask against your face   https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/your-health/effective-masks.htm  (實驗發現，醫療口罩加布口罩，能隔絕96％病毒，而一層醫療口罩或布口罩只能阻隔40％,  ltn 2-12-2021)

　

    physicians in Taiwan, medical Doctors in Taiwan   top rankings on the net !!

　

　

　

CovID-19 in Taiwan, since 2020 

　

●  The Guardian (UK), 2021-5-16: one of the world’s leading pandemic responses prompted partial lockdown measures in two cities... The level 3 alert covers about 6.5 million of Taiwan’s 24 million people ... (ps: CBS, 2021-5-20: covers entire Taiwan) had not implemented more stringent restrictions (level 4 alert) because residents might resist...  guidelines for hospitals to prioritise symptomatic Covid cases, saying dedicated beds were beginning to fill.    theguardian.com/world/2021/may/16/lockdowns-and-panic-buying-in-taiwan-as-covid-cases-rise)

　

●  Reuters, 2021-5-12:  Taiwan... share market tumbles.   Reuters, 2021-5-14:  Taipei's bars, nightclubs, saunas and karaoke halls would close from the following day . 

●  New York Times , 3-14-2021: Taiwan is selling a life without fear of the virus. Every day, droplets fly with abandon in packed restaurants..... many wonder how long Taiwan’s status as a Covid-19 outlier can last, especially amid vaccine campaigns elsewhere. Officials have been slow to procure and distribute vaccines   nytimes.com/2021/03/13/world/taiwan-a-covid-19-outlier-is-selling-something-scarce-life-without-fear-of-the-virus.html  )

● Washington Post, 12-22-2020: Taiwan snaps world’s longest Covid-free streak after pilot infects local resident. (The loophole of Taiwan is pilots undergo a less strict three days of self-quarantine after each overseas trip)

● United Daily, editorial (12-24-2020) points out the myth of Taiwan's longest Covid-free streak has always been questioned because  (1) lots of tourists or foreign laborers were found infected while going through their country's immigration (2) lots of foreign art-performers and laborers were found infected after 14 days home quarantine in Taiwan.  These let us know there indeed are "mild CovID-19 spread in some corners of our communities " (輕症傳播), people with coronavirus infections have no or mild symptoms.  Fortunately everyone in Taiwan wearing masks stops serious situation. (https://udn.com/news/story/7338/5117298?from=udn-catehotnews_ch2 )  ABC News (12-15-2020) reported Taiwan has set a goal to vaccinate only 60% of its population with a COVID-19 vaccine (abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory/latest-korea-opening-dozens-free-virus-test-sites-74710084 ).  But VOA, LTN, 12-25-2020 (news.ltn.com.tw/news/world/breakingnews/3391701) advise 70% of a country's population should have antibody or must to take vaccinate.  

　

● China Times, 3-18-2021, editorial: Taiwan's vaccine diplomacy is sad -  expert analysis, Taiwan is planning to donate about NT$ 2 hundred million to Paraguay
( last holdout in South America) to get COVID vaccines, therefore, the covering in Paraguay will be 28.6%, in contrast, that in Taiwan is only 0.5%. chinatimes.com/opinion/20210318004639-262103?chdtv

　

●  Guardian (UK), 10-31-2020: Now, Taipei's people browse, busk and greet each other with handshakes and hugs. It feels normal.  However, Taiwan has already "exported" dozens COVID-19 infected cases to a number of foreign countries, not sure yet who should be responsible for this, according to United Daily, editorial, 10-31-2020. https://udn.com/news/story/7338/4977422?from=udn-catehotnews_ch2


●  New York Post  4-25-2020 : Taiwan deals with CovID-19 with "a lot more authoritarian.", "almost everyone is tracked.".  Taiwanese govt. responded at 4-28-2020 that Taiwanese would like to cooperate with our policy.  But the truth is Taiwan's "Big Brother" already sneaked into numerous families in the name of  Epidemic Prevention, by an injunction violating Tort Law and domineering over Constitution (凌駕憲法的侵權禁令) , without having noticed all nationals, in accordance with United Daily, editorial at 5-7-2020.   The ironic thing is after lifting Coronavirus Lockdown, Japan doesn't trust Taiwan's Epidemic Prevention, and has not put "democratic" Taiwan on their welcome list, many other countries did same thing to Taiwan.  The China Times, editorial (6-6-2020, 6-25-2020) analyzed one main reason is Taiwan rejects mass testing, even small-scale testing, the number of test per million people is 3000+, ranked world No. 138, about same level as that of African countries, even African Luanda tested double number of Taiwan's.  A famous National Taiwan University M.D. expert endorsed for Taiwan's policy :   there's no any CovID-19 in Taiwan, but 3 weeks later, a Japanese girl staying Taiwan for 4 months was detected positive in Japan's airport.   Therefore, those free flow of information can be suspicious and may endanger the entire world.  United Daily 7-16-2020: To keep good record,  Taiwan takes 'ostrich' strategy (avoid mass testing). According to Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease, USA, "somewhere between 25% and 50%" of people infected with the new coronavirus may never show symptoms or fall ill — but can still transmit the illness to others (4-15-2020, Business Insider). Bill Gates in the New England Journal of Medicine: The prevalence of asymptomatic transmission doesn't bode well for global containment efforts.  All studies (CNBC 5-7-2020, Singapore's Blackbox Research and Toluna, Forbes 6-5-2020, 4-16-2020: The Deep Knowledge Group) concluded China is better than Taiwan on CovID-19 safety countries rankings.  Apple Daily 7-8-2020:  expert (中央研究院研究員何美鄉) warned that many CovID-19 infected people without symptom in Taiwan.


●  The China Times, editorial (6-6-2020) : world don't trust Taiwan's Epidemic Prevention achievement  ――  Although Japan, Greece, Australia, New Zealand lifted Its Coronavirus Lockdown, their tourist-welcome-list includes Korea, China, but not Taiwan.  Since the very beginning Taiwan rejects mass testing, even small-scale testing.   But according to Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease, USA, "somewhere between 25% and 50%" of people infected with the new coronavirus may never show symptoms or fall ill — but can still transmit the illness to others (4-15-2020, Business Insider).  Bill Gates in the New England Journal of Medicine: The prevalence of asymptomatic transmission doesn't bode well for global containment efforts.  Taiwan Yahoo News (8-6-2020, news.yahoo.com/自家人開第一槍何志偉逆時中入境一律篩檢-002543455.html) reported even ruling party's lawmaker now urges giving testing to all visitors going thru immigration.
● Taiwan News 6-26-2020, United Daily 6-27-2020: Following news that a Japanese student tested positive for coronavirus after returning from southern Taiwan on Wednesday (June 24), many Taiwanese expressed concerns over a potential undetected community cluster. Voices have also begun to surge from communities calling for general virus testing for all individuals entering the island country.  Taiwan CECC insists general virus testing unnecessary ... UDN 7-16-2020:  the only means govt. got are containment and wearing mask.  United Daily 6-30-2020 editorial: Taiwanese experts suggesting general testing were attacked by internet army for that reason.


● The China Times 6-25-2020 editorial: Taiwan has no same capacity and experience as Beijing does to face something serious, it will be horrible in case CovID-19 epidemic break out.  https://www.chinatimes.com/opinion/20200624003961-262101?chdtv

　

According to
CovID-19 Taiwan deaths - Google Search 2021-5-27
based on Wikipedia, NY Times, etc, many other Asian countries did a much better job than Taiwan did on
recovery rate
- Singapore 99.1%, Hong Kong 97.6%, mainland China 94.5%, Korea 92.75%, Japan 88.9%  The Father of CorionaVirus in Taiwan 賴明詔 said
 that Singapore's medical tech. is better and their culture is different. e.g., Financial Times (UK), 2021-6-1: Another problem appears to be cultural...other public health experts have been discouraged from challenging Health Minister......The country ... was not prepared for a surge of infections, and the Guardian, 2021-6-7 points out Taiwan authorities hadn’t kept up with new scientific knowledge around virulent new strains...Taiwan did not give importance to the importance of ventilation to combat aerosolised spread, the effectiveness of mass testing, or the examples set by some countries of locking down hard and early,  theguardian.com/world/2021/jun/07/a-victim-of-its-own-success-how-taiwan-failed-to-plan-for-a-major-covid-outbreak  NY Times says Taiwan now is a  " a bit of a problem child".
 Taiwan's medical capacity was not enough only a few days after CovID-19 flare-up in middle May.   China Times, editorial, 2021-6-9: The medicine for patients is not enough.
chinatimes.com/opinion/20210608005991-262101?chdtv  WSWS, 2021-6-4:  acute shortage of isolation beds and wards, as well as the [specialized] staff to run them...negative pressure and isolation wards, putting staff and other patients at risk of infection.”.   Local media report in Jun. says several hundreds of nurses leave their position.   Taipei Medical University professor 楊哲銘 says "no more think Taiwan's medical quality is quite good" (udn.com/news/story/7339/5513808?from=udn-catehotnews_ch2).  The situation will be much horrible if other cities' situation becomes as serious as Taipei which has much more medical resources than others.  Global Times criticizes "Taiwan authorities have no intention or power to fight the epidemic at all."  "Taiwan's COVID-19 fight has been a mess and the Taiwan authorities can only play tricks to make up for their mistakes" globaltimes.cn/page/202106/1225525.shtml globaltimes.cn/page/202106/1225540.shtml (ps: they regard politics more).

　

 CovID-19 Taiwan deaths - Google Search   sources : Wikipedia, NewYork Times etc    2021-5-27
country cases recovered recovery rate
Singapore 61916 61360 0.991
New Zealand 2670  2623 0.982
Hong Kong 11836 11561 0.9767
UAE 561K 541K 0.964
Macau 51 49 0.96
Saudi Arabia 445K 427K 0.959
Australia  20575 19720 0.958
China (mainland) 91038 86075 0.945
Korea 138K 128K 0.9275
Japan  731K 650K 0.889
Malaysia 533K 465K 0.872
Vietnam 6086  2853 0.468
Thailand  138K 26873 0.194
Taiwan 6091 1133 0.186 (down to 0.1 in 2021-6-5)

　

　

vaccine coverage, comparison among countries of Asia & Pacific
New York Times, 2021-11-9 Economist, 2021-11-9
vaccinated  % fully vaccinated  %

People aged 12+
with 1st doses  %

People aged 12+ with 2nd dose
Taiwan 74  Taiwan  37 Taiwan  81.6 Taiwan  40.4
UAE 99+ UAE 89 E. Asia 113.1 E. Asia 47.1
Cambodia  85 Cambodia  80 Qatar  142.1 Qatar   47.4
Singapore 83 Singapore  82 mainland China 141 mainland China 47
Qatar  83 Qatar  78  UAE 111.9  UAE 100.4
mainland China 83 mainland China 77 Cambodia 110.9 Cambodia 104.7
S. Korea 80 Malaysia 77 Malaysia 97.2 Malaysia 93.8
Malaysia  80 S. Korea 76 Mongolia 92.9 Mongolia 88.2
Japan 78 Japan 74   New Zealand  92. New Zealand 80.7
 New Zealand 76  Australia  68 Sri Lanka 90.7 Sri Lanka 77.9
 Australia   76 New Zealand 67 Singapore 90.2 Singapore 89.2
Macau  74 Mongolia  66 S. Korea 89.6 S. Korea 84.6
Sri Lanka 72 Saudi Arabia 63    Australia 89.5   Australia 80.0
Saudi Arabia 71 Sri Lanka  62 Saudi Arabia 87.4  Saudi Arabia 78.1
Mongolia 70 Hong Kong  60  Japan 86.3 Japan 81.1
　 Macau  57 　 　


For exact meaning, please go to CovID-19 in Taiwan, Chinese version