Filmmaker Who Traveled to Taiwan Describes Country's Strict Policies During Age of COVID

Filmmaker Alice Wu recently traveled to Taiwan, which has successfully contained COVID-19. USA Today reports that the country, which is home to approximately 24 million people, has had just 607 cases of the coronavirus this year, and seven deaths. For comparison, "Florida has a slightly smaller population (21.5 million), but has recorded more than 897,000 cases and 17,600 deaths."

Daily life in Taiwan has mostly returned to normal, with people packing into subways and working in offices. But how are they doing it? And how are they handling those who travel into the country from places where the virus is still spreading? Alice Wu tells us in a viral thread she wrote based on her own, firsthand experience.

It's true that most Americans have no idea how other countries are handling the virus. We know that we are doing it very badly, but that means we have no conception of what a successful pandemic response looks like. Taiwan very nearly completely contained the virus. I would bet their treatment of the pandemic differs greatly.  

Alice explains that the government tracks everyone coming into the country via their cell phones. This may already seem like a violation of privacy for some Americans, but remember, we're in the middle of a deadly global pandemic. For some countries, protecting their citizens and curbing the spread of the virus is more important than some nebulous idea of individual "freedom."

Unlike in the U.S., the government has invested in its pandemic response. That's why, even with the very small number of cases in Taiwan, all travelers are provided "covid-safe" car rides to their hotel rooms. 

Additionally, all meals are provided and delivered to hotel rooms. This investment is one way to ensure that visitors have the capacity to quarantine properly. Every day, the health department calls to ask if you have any symptoms. If not, you continue to quarantine. If you have any symptoms at all, you are immediately taken to the hospital.

This is a stark contrast from the United States, where the onus is completely on the person to quarantine yet still somehow get meals and necessities to their hotel. As you can imagine, this results in people who are supposed to be in tight quarantine leaving and interacting with others when they shouldn't be.

Alice writes that it really wasn't that difficult to follow the rules and have her decisions made for her when she was provided with everything she needed. Not to mention, she's helping a country keep its case count low and not spreading a virus after she's had a lot of potential exposure. 

After 15 days in quarantine, you can go, but you must check your temperature every morning, and someone calls to make sure you're OK. They actually give every traveler a thermometer. After 22 days of quarantining and then monitoring your temperature, you are free to move around the country. This is how you make sure a virus doesn't spread.

Contact tracing efforts are highly organized, so if there is a breakout, those who came into contact with the COVID-positive person are notified as quickly as possible. Those people are then required to quarantine. 

$10,000 to $30,000 may seem steep, but you're putting actual people's lives at risk when you break quarantine, and Taiwan takes the safety of its residents seriously. It may seem like an overstep that the government is able to track people with their phones, but again, we're living through a global pandemic. These aren't normal times. 

Alice reminds us that these policies have allowed the people of Taiwan to live their normal lives since February. People are eating in restaurants, traveling on public transportation, existing in public spaces without intense fear of getting COVID. That's huge. 

Alice concludes her thread with this: "I guess this could have been our lives too? Food for thought..." But we have a federal government that is so reluctant to step in, even in times of crisis. We have a president who gutted the CDC and was woefully unprepared for a situation like this. 

We have a population that values individual freedom at the expense of everything else, including our neighbors' lives. We have leaders who politicized the idea of wearing a face mask in order to curb the spread of the virus and made it a matter of personal preference when it should have absolutely been a national mandate.

There is no overstating just how disastrous the United States' response to the pandemic has been. Other countries like Taiwan have been able to largely return to normal life while the U.S. is experiencing a horrific wave of cases. Maybe it's time we demand things are done differently.