How to respond to a pandemic

Learn from Taiwan.

The U.S. and Taiwan got their first confirmed cases of Covid-19 on the same day, January 19, 2020. Taiwan was ready for it and acted aggressively to stop its spread and save lives. The U.S. ignored it.

As I write this, less than three months later, the U.S, has 312,245 cases, three times as many as the next most severely-hit countries, Spain and Italy, and nearly 1000 times as many cases as Taiwan, which now has 355 cases. Depending on when you read this, these numbers will have become worse, much worse, or catastrophically worse. Have a look.

In the internet age, it’s easy to learn how Taiwan succeeded, and what we could have done differently here, given halfway intelligent leadership. In this short video, for example, you will learn that Taiwanese officials boarded planes arriving from China to test passengers before they deplaned. They coordinated health agencies and used “big data” to merge health records with travel records to determine whether Covid-19 tests should be administered to the de-planing passengers (they had sufficient tests ready to deploy on the spot). They issued masks and escorted people who tested positive to their destination alone in special vehicles. They quarantined the affected people and used cell-phone data to track them and called them three times a day to monitor their symptoms. They brought them food or took them to the doctor. During quarantine, the police first started detaining violators and then began paying them to remain home.  And so on, etc., ad infinitum.

The Taiwanese government took control of making and distributing masks, and are now in a position to donate their surpluses of over a million masks to other afflicted countries who hadn’t displayed their intelligence, foresight, and determination to stop the virus. Like that poor “superpower”, the U.S.A.  It feels like the story of The Ant and the Grasshopper, but with a potentially more charitable ending.

In the U.S., however, we are led by a very stable genius who doesn’t take advice from scientists, health professionals, or history, since his instincts and gut-feelings are always correct. So we embarked on a different course. While bragging about how we have the best health system in the world, the best scientific minds, the best corporations, etc., there has been virtually no action from the Executive branch to marshal these resources against the outbreak.

It wouldn’t have been that hard to do, even without Taiwan’s example.

Bob Kraft’s jet brings 1.7 million masks from China

Joe Tsai, Nets owner, donates masks and ventilators

We all know the continuing evolution of  Tweety’s pronouncements on the pandemic. They’re too ridiculous to catalog here, but it boils down to him asking himself first whether the person who is explaining things to him is a devoted Trump ally or not. He often concludes that a scientist, for example, may not not have voted for him, and so science must therefore be a liberal hoax, like the Russian collusion investigation or the Impeachment process, whose objective is to bring him down.  His son and principal surrogate, Don Jr., clarifies the Trump camp posture by saying that Democrats want millions of people to die in the pandemic.

Trump far prefers fighting with everybody about everything to actually doing his job.  He is a liar, a con-man, and a fraud who lied and conned his way into the most powerful position in the world. He has repeatedly been revealed to be utterly incompetent, and we are all now paying a devastating price.

I would like to wear an N-95 mask the next time I go to the market. I had a whole package of them a while back, but used the last one during a spray-painting project and failed to get a new supply. Now, it’s impossible to find one. I looked on my healthcare provider’s web site for guidance, and saw that they had issued a plea for people to make masks at home and donate them to the facility.  The medical professionals that have always been there to help us must now ask us to help them.

I found this mask in my tool-box, but the filter cartridges are not available for purchase anymore – they’re designated on Amazon as “Prioritized for hospitals and government agencies directly responding to COVID-19 in the U.S.”

Guess I’ll just have to take my chances when going for food. Like everyone else who’s been paying attention, I feel a bit trapped and without options, just waiting for the Angel of Corona to pass over. I never in a million years thought I’d say something like this, but, today at least, I think I’d rather be waiting in Taiwan.