username

If you look at this https://infogram.com/--1h8j4xgy7x1d6mv - the pinkish color represents the imported cases and the greenish color represents the local transmission. It went up drastically the last 2 weeks due to people returning from Europe, Middle East and the US.

The general view of the Taiwanese right now is that Taiwan is safer than anywhere else in the world. They also have national health care. So, some people who live overseas go back and bring the virus with them.

They are preparing for some local transmissions in the next few weeks - how bad it is depends on how careful people are and how they follow the rules. Knowing how the Taiwanese follows the laws, I am worried.

The other interesting thing is the age distribution in the 2nd chart. Most of the cases are people 20-29 - a lot of them went travelling in March and a lot of them are returning overseas students.

The government is pretty stubborn about not doing wide testing - even at the airport. The logic is they don't want to produce false negatives and have people be complacent. I would guess is other reason is probably capacity - same as their changing position with masks. When they have a confirmed case, they track down all the contacts and test them. That can be a lot of people.

https://sites.google.com/cdc.gov.tw/2019ncov/taiwan shows they have tested about 33,000 cases so far.

Another thing is they keep people in isolation for a long time - until they are sure. Only 39 of the 322 confirmed cases have been released. Most are supposedly mild but they keep them isolated until they are sure.

s0ssos

But Vietnam tests at the airport and then quarantines for 14 days. Everybody. Why don't they do that?

username

Their logic is they don't want to produce false negatives and have people be complacent (during their quarantine at home - many of the earlier cases were from family members living together).

s0ssos

Well, Singapore isn't allowing quarantine at home.
But it's a moot point. I cannot change the way Taiwan does it.

davewang202

IIRC, the standard for getting off of the "infected with SARS" list was 2 weeks of zero native transmission cases, Not sure if China proper would qualify as "SARS-COV-2 free" by April 8 under such standard, but it seems to make sense to allow PAX coming from SARS-COV-2 free regions to transit, while disallowing PAX from SARS-COV-2 infected regions to transit. Not trying to harass you here, since you obviously don't know what the specific policy makers are thinking, but I was wondering if anyone seen such standards or such logic being discussed?

gengar

The ridiculousness of China being an 'uninfected region' aside, Taiwan policy doesn't currently make a distinction between regions in any other area of pandemic response (blanket ban on entry for foreign nationals, blanket quarantine for everyone entering Taiwan, etc.) - doesn't seem likely that they'd start picking and choosing with respect to just transit passengers, especially not anytime soon.

davewang202

EVA has updated the policy and extended to April 30.

In compliance with the latest instruction by Taiwan’s Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC), EVA Air will suspend all international transit services via Taiwan starting from the midnight of March 24 until 24:00, April 30. (Taipei Time).
For the latest information of EVA's flight schedule and related rules of ticket change or refund, passengers can visit EVA’s Coronavirus disease 2019 website at https://www.evaair.com/en-global/emer/2019-nCoV.html.

username

No, I don't know what they are thinking - they are only transparent to a certain extent. They are very cautious so that is what I was expecting.

Interesting report on the PBS Newshour tonight: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/ta...ainst-covid-19

nufnuf77

Do we think transits will be allowed from May 1?

ps: I am trying to reunite with my wife in HAN and it's proving beyond difficult. I am in BKK and happy to meet anywhere in the world but the current situation only allows us to go UK or Mexico. Problem is getting out of HAN. Ideally I would get her on BR HAN-TPE-BKK-LHR and I join on BKK-LHR segment... wishful thinking?

username

No one knows. If I had to guess, I think the best case is limited lifting by route/country/direction. I would also think that if Vietnam is lifted, SGN will be first.

gengar

Truly sorry to hear of your circumstance, but I find it very hard to believe the TPE transit ban could be lifted on May 1.

If your main interest is to reunite as soon as possible, make sure you are checking all relevant embassies in your potential destination countries for government-arranged flights. For example, the UK and Ireland have arranged one flight departing HAN on 14 April (but just after midnight, so under 36 hours from now) which is available to all nationalities - not just UK/Ireland. See, e.g., https://vn.usembassy.gov/u-s-citizen...9-information/

Obviously you don't want to get stuck in an even worse situation than currently (esp. in a country in which one or neither of you have nationality or lack resources including home government resources), but I can only imagine there will be fewer and fewer options to get you to any international destination in the near term.

nufnuf77

Yup, I am currently stuck in Thailand. We both think its better to reunite somewhere safe in asia and stay on some beach hut until it blows over for a few months. Taiwan is actually our preferred destination of all places because heathcare is excellent and people are risk averse. I have seen the VN flight to london but we dont fancy UK just yes unless as a last resort tbh in May if no asian country reopens...

baroqen

Currently the only "safe" places that I can think of are:

Antarctica
Macau
Taiwan

Taiwan pretty much isn't letting anyone in, and Macau is nearly as bad. Without the right passports, you aren't getting into either one in the near future. Antarctica is wholly different problem but arguably easier to go to right now. They have a distinct lack of beach huts, but I hear the penguins are friendly.

gengar

Taiwan seems pretty safe right now, but they've already had many cases of local transmission. All it takes is one. Most Taiwanese aren't taking it very seriously - just look at everyone traveling and out and about over the Tomb-Sweeping Festival holiday (hopefully we will not see an infection spike this week), or how long it took government to limit 'moderate'-size gatherings, etc. Taiwan media seems more interested in publicly shaming individuals not wearing masks on the MRT than the fact that nightclubs and hostess bars were still allowed to be open as recently as last week.

For many reasons, I personally hope Taiwan remains safe, and their policies have played a factor in keeping infections to a minimum. But Taiwan has also been very, very lucky.

username

They just announced the ban continues but did not give an expiration date....