This is Part 8 of this article. Read the last part here: Part 79. Lockdown measures and order of vaccination for adults
Lockdown measures are a critical topic during this pandemic. Bill Gates writes some points related to lockdown measures in his book, which I agree with. He indicates, “Even though lockdowns have clear benefits for public health, it’s not always clear whether in lower-income countries they are worth the sacrifice. In such places, closing down sectors of the economy can lead to acute hunger, drive people into extreme poverty, and increase deaths from other causes.” He further points out, “There’s a similar phenomenon in wealthier countries: Low-income people in those places are both less likely to be able to comply with lockdowns and more likely to be affected by COVID.” True, Shanghai is an extreme example of a radical lockdown, and low-income people are the majority of people who were affected the most by this pandemic.
Though the majority of countries didn’t have such a radical lockdown as the Shanghai experience, I do believe that some modifications to lockdown measures for adults need to be done by the Taiwan government. Such modifications should be accompanied by changes in the order of vaccination. In terms of lockdown measures and the vaccination order, the Taiwanese government enacted them based on Western countries’ ones. One of the examples that need to point out is the vaccination order: Just as many western countries did, Taiwan started the inoculation by vaccinating the elderly because the elderly are the ones who have a higher possibility of death when getting infected with the coronavirus. From my perspective, while western countries’ lockdown measures and vaccination orders are good because they are enacted based on the death risk of different ages of people, the measures and vaccination orders aren’t suitable for Taiwan. The types of companies in many western countries are different from the types of companies in Taiwan. The majority of the jobs of the companies which people in these western countries work are office jobs. These jobs can be done remotely at home during a pandemic. However, many Taiwanese companies are manufacturing companies. Many Taiwanese workers needed to work in factories instead of in their homes. While most of the elder people are retired and stayed at home, and many young generations of workers including millennials and Gen Z were desperately waiting for inoculation so they could go to work for their living, I do think that the Taiwan government should change the order of inoculation. Especially many millennials and Gen Z are entry-level employees rather than people who are in their 40s or 50s, thus becoming a manager or a director, and having the luxury to work in offices instead of in factories. This situation, in my view, became a disparity. Hence, I suggest the Taiwan government should only make all the people with chronic or severe diseases, including the elderly one with such diseases, receive the first priority of inoculation, as people with chronic diseases need to frequently go to the hospital, which is a high-risk place, for medical treatment. Otherwise, people who are of working age, especially in their 20s or 30s, are the ones who should receive inoculation first. The elderly people can continue staying at home for their retirement life or work and giving their orders remotely at home. The more important thing to do is that young people still need to wear masks and wash hands often to prevent infections even after they are vaccinated, so the elder people at home won’t get infected and therefore go dead because young adults get infected outside, as I explained in Point 1 of this article. In addition, young people should consider keeping staying at home instead of going back to work outside after vaccination if they live with elderly people for preventing infections of themselves and of people living with them. Not every young people live with parents, and most of the young people who live outside are the ones who desperately need to go back to work to pay their rent or mortgage.
In addition to modification of lockdown measures and the order of vaccination based on the difference of countries, the order of inoculation should be arranged and adjusted on a global level by the WHO, instead of at a national level by individual countries, so people who work in the healthcare sector or in a factory in low-income countries and therefore more desperately and urgently need vaccination to support their vital work in society or earn their livings can receive vaccination earlier than wealthy people who can work remotely at home in rich countries. Such a change in the arrangement has already been discussed in Point 4 of this article.
10. Some Solutions To The Disadvantage Of School Closure
Except for lockdown measures for adults, school closure for children and teenagers is also an important topic. During the pandemic, many schools had moved to remote learning. However, Bill Gates points out in the book, “Few teachers have been trained to develop remote lessons, though this will change over time, as online tool kits and curricula improve. There are still many people who don’t have internet access—in South Asia, more than a third of the students forced to stay home were unable to do remote learning—and many of those who do have access found the experience less than engaging. “ In addition, Bill Gates says, “Millions of students in the United States and around the world rely on schools for free and reduced-price meals. In school, kids learn how to interact with their peers, get exercise, and have access to mental health support.”
I agree with Bill Gates’s perspective on the disadvantages of remote learning in schools. Not only in South Asia, in Taiwan, there are also children and teenagers who encountered the same problems which are overlooked by the Taiwan government and the public. Many children and teenagers from poor families have no computer or internet access and thus had no way to do remote learning during this pandemic. These poor students in Taiwan probably also lost the free and reduced-price lunch from school during the school closure as the poor students in the U.S did. It’s a common problem that appears in different ways for poor students who need to do remote learning in every country. I have a suggestion in the following paragraphs.
My suggestion is governments need to plan a budget for providing laptops to poor students and provide mobile Wifi to these students during a pandemic. The computer already become an essential tool in normal people’s life nowadays, so letting poor students be able to own laptops to assist their learning is a good thing. Wifi is also necessary, but considering the cost of purchasing Internet monthly, I suggest governments at least consider providing mobile Wifi to poor students during a pandemic. Without a laptop and Internet access, the learning of poor students will be far behind that of normal students during a pandemic. In my view, the fall behind in learning due to a pandemic is as important as subsidizing citizens who lost jobs because of the pandemic.
Although in Taiwan, there was a civilian-run corporation, ASUS, donates some laptops to poor students from Kaohsiung [1]https://finance.ettoday.net/news/1985218 , and I believe there were also some other organizations donating laptops to poor students in other countries, these acts of kindness are not enough to cover the majority of poor students. For example, ASUS’s act of kindness only covers poor students in Kaohsiung, Taiwan, while there are poor students in every county of Taiwan. In addition, the issue that poor student faces are mostly ignored by the public in Taiwan, even if there was a good deed done by ASUS. Except for civilian-run organizations, governments should also provide some laptops to poor students. In addition, I hope this article can raise considerations of the public, so more poor students can get a laptop for their remote learning. There were so many donations in Taiwan that went to free lunches and drinks to doctors and nurses for appreciating their efforts during this pandemic. Doctors and nurses have salaries to buy lunches and drinks themselves, but poor students don’t have money to buy laptops for their learning. So many donations had gone to the wrong places. If hospital workers are too busy to order lunches for themselves, certainly people can help with doing that, but please don’t donate money to buy those lunches; donations of money have to go to the right persons who are most in need fir.
In terms of the disadvantage of remote learning about losing interaction and other things which are only available in school, this is certainly a disadvantage of remote learning. With the current way of remote learning, being remote means you are away from people. Thus, my conclusion is as same as Bill Gates’s conclusion: Remote learning, though good in many ways, perhaps isn’t suitable for most children for their learning. Bill Gates hopes that there are some improvements to this problem in the future. Yes, I do think of a possible solution: VR technology. With VR technologies, students can interact with other students in a virtual space. So this is perhaps a solution to remote learning. It’s not a possible solution at the moment, as VR isn’t common in most families for now, but in the future, students may be able to use VR to escape the problem of loss of interaction.
11. Suggestions For Making Sure The Action Items On The Reports Are Done
Bill Gates also talks about the problems of the execution of action items which came from many meetings of politicians, including meetings related to subjects of infectious disease. In his book, he writes, “There’s no innovation that can make sure that after-action reports don’t simply get stored on some website and then forgotten. Political leaders and policymakers will need to change this.”
An obvious problem is the lack of determination to accomplish action items. Another problem behind this issue is that many politicians and government personnel lack abilities in organization and project management. Particularly, it’s about task management’s ability to track action items of meetings in the project management area. Since there was no person who are responsible for tracking action items of meetings, for many government personnel if action items were simply stored in meeting notes, that was just different meeting notes for the record of meetings. Further, so many action items are spreading across different files, while these action items should be done by different people, and have a different timeline. In practice, a meeting note which was made later than another meeting note can have action items that should be done earlier than the earlier-made meeting note; different action items from different meeting notes can also belong to the same person who should accomplish these actions. Hence, even if someone comes out and is determined to track these action items, she/he will be drawn into a deep hole and be very confused about where to start and what to do if she/he is lack organization skills. Using meeting notes to track action items is an unorganized and inefficient way if there are many meetings, and action items of a meeting can’t be accomplished immediately after the meeting.
Therefore, I would suggest governments that have the same problem use Trello or task management tools similar to Trello to organize and track action items of meetings on a task board. Using task management tools such as Trello to organize action items of different meetings will make tasks be displayed in more clear and efficient ways, such as displaying in a timeline manner, or in a task owner (people who need to do the job) manner – to some extent, these displayed manners are more organized. Even if there was no person responsible for tracking action items of meetings, everyone in the government will know that there is a task board of Trello or something like Trello, and there are action items on that task board that need to be done. Action item owners can also use this task board to track their action items on her/his own.
Speaking of there being no person responsible for tracking action items, do governments need project managers to track these action items? I would say it depends – maybe there is no need; maybe there is. For some discussions or policies, maybe it’s enough for policymakers or the head of a specific department to track these action items on a task board.
That’s the solution for now. In the future, we may be able to use technology to remove such work. When Bill Gates talks about remote work in his book, he says, “Live transcription will one day allow you to search for a topic across all meetings at your company. You might be able to have action items automatically added to your to-do list as they’re mentioned”. With such a tool, we don’t need to manually organize tasks on a task management tool. I look forward to such an innovation.
Although Bill Gates talks about the problem that happened in the U.S, this problem can also happen in Taiwan or any country. I see many meeting notes of the Taiwan government departments are stored on websites. If there is no person who is responsible for tracking these meeting notes, the result of the situation will be the same. Anyway, whether or not there is a person responsible for tracking action items of meeting notes, as many action items of government departments are complicated, I suggest the Taiwan government can also adopt using task management tools such as Trello to track action items of meetings.
12. Bioterror Attack Prevention
Bioterror attack is also an issue Bill Gates put emphasis on in his book. He says, “Governments should also get serious about working together to prepare for a bioterror attack.” He thinks it’s an issue that is unprepared enough despite its severity, thus he suggests, “Given the national security implications of an attack and the chance that the number of casualties could reach into the millions, more of this research should come from defense budgets……Defense officials need to be involved alongside health experts in designing policies, shaping the research agenda, and setting up disease simulations”.
I agree with Bill Gates’s suggestions, and since the bioterror attack is a serious issue to which every country should be alert, I believe every country should consider adopting these suggestions, including Taiwan. Further, I suggest the WHO should work with the U.N for preventing bioterror attacks on a global level, and since it involves humanitarian issues, I hope the WHO and the U.N can let non-members of the WHO or the U.N such as Taiwan join the relevant discussions.
13. Other measures
Except for the problems in the U.S which are mainly discussed in Bill Gates’s book, I want to talk about the problems of other COVID-19 measures in Taiwan.
13.(1) Abilities of contact tracing investigators
In a Dcard article, an infector in Taiwan raised a problem which is about the mistakes made by a contact tracing investigator. The Point 3 of the article points out that a contact tracing investigator asked the infector, “Who in the company you work for should the investigator contact?” The infector gave the name of her supervisor. In the end, her supervisor said she was the only one who needs a quarantine. She wasn’t asked for information about other employees by the investigator and the investigator didn’t listen to the supervisor’s explanation but just demanded the supervisor do a quarantine. While the infector thought the investigator should consult with her supervisor to understand the situation in the company, the investigator only take her supervisor as the only person who needs a quarantine [2]https://www.dcard.tw/f/2019_ncov/p/236091167 .
The Taiwan government needs to be serious about this problem, as this is a ridiculous problem that shouldn’t happen. I want to provide possible problems behind this issue, and there are three of them.
First, which is the most obvious, is the investigator didn’t do his/her job seriously.
Second, the investigator didn’t know how to do this job properly. For example, the investigator may doesn’t know what to ask a company employee when doing an investigation of contact tracing in a company. This is related to two possible causes: One, lack of proper job training. Two, he/she is lack of ability to do contact tracing jobs. Or both, which is also common in many Taiwan companies – Government departments could also have the same cause.
Third, the investigator is lack expression abilities. So when she asked “Who in the company you work for should the investigator contact?”, she actually meant this: “Who in the company you work for has contacted you?”. Although it seems ridiculous – a mistake that is supposed not to be made by an average person, this is a common problem that happens in Taiwan while most Taiwanese don’t realize it. In addition, it’s very likely that this problem of lack of expression abilities also involves the above two problems: The investigator may doesn’t do the job seriously, so he/she doesn’t care about what he/she asks for. Just getting a name is enough. Or the investigator doesn’t know how to do this job properly, and she/he comes up with a way of asking for potential contacts on her/his own, while she/his expression skill sucks. That said, even if the government didn’t provide proper training, an average person shouldn’t have such a terrible expression ability: Such a simple question shouldn’t be expressed in this way. So it’s still mostly about the problem of lack of expression ability, not job training. Anyway, if the real problem is the third one – lack of expression abilities, that’s not the infector’s problem of not giving all the contacts; it’s the investigator’s problem of not asking questions accurately.
The actual problem could be either one of the above three possible problems I list or all of them. The Taiwan government must identify the problem and fix it accordingly.
13.(2) Explanation of cash coupons in Taiwan
There is one popular question raised in Taiwan when the Taiwan government was providing cash coupons to stimulate the economy during the pandemic: Many poor people are in need of money. Why doesn’t the government provide cash instead of cash coupons? The president of the Executive Department of Taiwan, Zhen Chang Su, answered, “There are already cash reimbursements. The cash coupon is about the national universal distribution, the limited time of usage, repeated cycle, increase of the offer or of discount from corporations and the local governments when using the cash coupon – the real effect happens in these areas [3]https://www.storm.mg/lifestyle/3870144 . ” A researcher from the Economic Research Institute of Academia Sinica, Jin-Han Chien, provided another explanation, “According to past research, comparing cash coupons, digital coupons, and cash, the effect of stimulating consumption by cash coupons is bigger, as the existence of cash coupon will remind users that it’s a bonus while providing cash will make users feel nothing about the extra cash [4]https://www.cw.com.tw/article/5117671 .
Many Taiwanese didn’t buy these explanations, but couldn’t tell why. I will tell you why and what’s the problem. The reason is that both of the explanations are good, but not right to point. The problem of President of Executive Department Zhen Chang Su is that he only explained the benefits of cash coupons, but he didn’t explain why providing cash is not okay. In addition, many people would have difficulties in understanding what President Zhen Chang Su said means if they don’t have knowledge about the economic benefits of cash coupons at a national level. As for the economic researcher, the problem of his explanation is that although he gave the difference between cash coupons and cash, he failed to mention why this difference matters and makes the government choose cash coupons over cash. One sentence from an article provides a better explanation, “It is not cost-free to distribute cash. If you want to go to a bank to collect it, the bank also needs manpower; if remit the money to a bank account, the government has to risk the subsidies getting saved in bank accounts instead of being spent [5]https://www.cw.com.tw/article/5117671 .” This sentence explains why the government wants to provide cash coupons instead of cash: The government wants the national economy to be stimulated. Providing cash coupons can force people to consume with them, while if providing cash, people may keep it and not spend it. Such a simple reason should just be explained in this manner, but president Zhen Chang Su and the economic researcher failed because of the points I explained above.
If the reason “people will save it” isn’t enough to convince you, let me give you another reason. Another concern of providing cash which the quoted article didn’t point out is that people may use it in purchasing oversea products which are not imported by Taiwan dealers. Such a purchase has no effect on stimulating the national economy as the money given by the government goes to other countries instead of local businesses. A government gives money to businesses in other countries and stimulates their national economies in exchange for nothing – Is there such a thing under the sky ( Under the sky: A Taiwan proverb which means “in the world” ), except for philanthropy? Due to this reason, providing cash is unfeasible. If the money goes to local businesses, local businesses can spend the money they earn locally, allowing other local businesses to make money, too – that’s why the President of the Executive Department says one of the benefits of cash coupons is repeated cycles. The knowledge of the subsidiary should go to local businesses in order to stimulate the national economy was already provided in the event of cash coupons for the financial crisis in 2008. If you were already an adult at that time, you may possess such knowledge of the “economic benefits of cash coupons on a national level.” Nevertheless, many people including old people seem not to possess such knowledge, even if they were old enough to comprehend the news and did watch relevant news at that time. (Anyway, there may also be some people who didn’t watch relevant news of 2008 cash coupons at that time.) So since President Zhen Chang Su didn’t provide an explanation of what he said meant, many people didn’t understand his explanation at all.
As for “increase of the offer or of discount from corporations and the local governments when using the cash coupon”, this means when local businesses provide increases of offers or discounts if you use a cash coupon, people will tend to spend more because of the increased offers. As a result, local businesses will earn more, and possibly spend more money locally – this also creates a repeated cycle of stimulating the national economy. This is why the increase of the offer or discount is also a benefit of cash coupons.
I hope this explanation is enough for answering your question. Again, Such a simple reason should just be explained in this manner, but president Zhen Chang Su and the economic researcher failed because of the points I explained above.
There are two relevant questions about adopting cash coupons. One is why the government didn’t provide digital coupons. But this problem was resolved – the government did also adopt digital coupons. The other one, which is the top concern of many Taiwanese, is that people are poor and running out of money, so people need cash instead of cash coupons. Yet, first, President Zhen Chang Su already explained that a lot of cash reimbursements to poor people have been provided during this pandemic. Second, the purpose of this cash coupon program is to stimulate the economy, not to help poor people. As for helping poor people who are in need, refer to the first point. There is a concern that whether the effect of stimulating the economy from providing cash coupons can be as big as the government expects [6]https://www.cw.com.tw/article/5117671 . That’s a different topic and I won’t discuss it here. Third, which is the most important one. Although many people still desperately need money when there have been cash reimbursements for those who are in need, providing cash as a way of stimulating the economy isn’t feasible due to the reason I explained in the previous paragraph. Furthermore, the Taiwanese government revised the rule and allow the public to use cash coupons when paying utility bills. Some landlords in Taiwan also accept cash coupons as rent payments, too.
Anyway, Point 13. (2) is about the explanation from the government personnel and researchers that can be better.
13.(3) A mask policy in Taiwan
Compared to people in many western countries, the Taiwanese have always been very cooperative in wearing masks. In the meantime, the Taiwan government has some very strict mask policies. Most of the mask policies in Taiwan are good; however, one of them receives much criticism from the Taiwanese: Wearing a mask when there are two or more people inside a car [7]https://today.line.me/tw/v2/article/9aq0Kg . In May 2021, Taiwan raised the alert level of disease control to the third grade. One of the policies in the third-grade alert is that people need to wear masks when there are two or more people inside a car; if driving alone in a car, no need to wear a mask [8]https://www.cna.com.tw/news/firstnews/202105215003.aspx .
This policy has aroused many criticisms from the Taiwanese. There are two arguments. Let me discuss them separately.
The first argument is simply thinking about why people can’t take off masks and drink water. It should be okay to drink water inside a car.
For this argument, I have to repeat what the Taiwanese government explained: Drinking water is fine, but other people who are inside the car have to leave the car for one of the people to drink water alone in a car. Many Taiwanese still complains about this policy after knowing this explanation, because it undermines most people’s convenience of resting in a car. So let me provide my explanation: Despite the inconvenience this policy brings, this actually explains the Taiwan government’s cautiousness in mask policies. Getting an infection inside a car is possible if you are not cautious. This policy which tells you that you have to leave the car for your partner to drink water is a good example of being cautious. Therefore, in this aspect, although there will also be negative repercussions if the same policy is executed in the West, I do think it’s a great policy, and I personally admire the Taiwan government plays cautiousness and enacting this mask policy.
The other argument is that one news is talking about a married couple who drank water in a car and got fined. A married couple doesn’t wear masks in their home. Then why does it matter with wearing a mask inside a car? Well, this criticism makes sense; I agree. That said, I don’t think this policy should be entirely discarded because of this reason. Preventing infection in a car is still important – As I said, the Taiwan government was being cautious. The policy needs some refinements, not being discarded. Then how to do with it? The Taiwan government already made good improvements. On July 2021, after the third grade of the alert level was partially lifted because of the epidemic slowed down, the Taiwan government relaxed the control measure. If you are traveling with your family by a car, you can eat and drink in the car [9]https://cars.tvbs.com.tw/hot-topic/15596 . The updated policy is better. However, the relaxed measure is because the epidemic slowed down. I suggest the Taiwan government consider implementing the updated policy in the third grade of the alert level circumstance in the future, as what the argument expresses: The policy is mostly useless but inconvient if people who are in a car are already living together.
13.(4) Answers to some complaints from Taiwanese
13.(4).1 Reaction to the statement of “a race of time between vaccination and virus mutation”
Former vice president and researcher Chien-Jen Chen said on his Facebook, “this is a race of time between vaccination and virus mutation… The top priority for Taiwan and other countries in the world now is to strengthen various anti-epidemic measures to stop the spread of the virus, and to obtain the largest amount of vaccines as quickly as possible, so that most people can be vaccinated in time.” Chien-Jen Chen believes that relying upon yourself is better than relying on others and that countries are actively promoting the independent research and development of mass production of vaccines …. in order to race against the mutation of the virus. He urges that the earlier the vaccination becomes widespread, the more the spread of the virus can be stopped, and the more the chance of new mutations can be reduced [10]https://www.facebook.com/chencj/posts/4080379925376132 .
This is a good thought, but many Taiwanese didn’t listen to it, as there was no vaccine available in Taiwan. Let’s see some of the points made by the Taiwanese[11]https://today.line.me/tw/v2/article/LPn8Y0?utm_source=copyshare .
“Nonsense.”
“You are saying like you are the only one who knows about vaccination! Why can you who are this terrible be a researcher at the National Academy of Taiwan?”
“What he said tells nothing. It’s the government’s biggest responsibility to get the vaccine in quickly.”
“Yes. You are the only one who knows that we need to get the vaccine quickly. But who is the one who didn’t buy enough effective vaccines, and who is the one who insisted on waiting for the domestic vaccine with unknown protection while urging for vaccination? Where are the sufficient quantities of vaccines? “
“At the end of the day, you are still promoting the domestic vaccine. You really never change”
“He said that the vaccine should be obtained and administered quickly, but the key words are “it is better to do yourself than to seek others’ helps”. So the previous talk is just for the sales of the Taiwan-made Medigan Vaccine and Taiwan-made United Biomedical Vaccine? “
“How can the former vice president be talking about something that even elementary school students know? A meaningless Monday morning quarterback. That should have been talked about a year ago! But it’s still the same – There is no vaccine.
“So it is proven that there is no a word of truth from the politicians in office, especially the two shameless ones at the top, who are waiting to be marginalized before they are willing to speak the truth, just like Chien-Jen Chen now.” [12]https://today.line.me/tw/v2/article/LPn8Y0?utm_source=copyshare
Ok. Let me start from the main argument of the above comments: There is no vaccine available in Taiwan, and Chien-Jen Chen is telling us to get vaccinated quickly with domestic vaccines which haven’t had proof of protection. What Chien-Jen Chen said is all nonsense.
My answer to this argument is this: What Chien-Jen Chen said is truth based on science – In order to race against the mutation of the virus, people must get vaccinated quickly. Either his entire statement or the excerpted brief one in news is about “how to race against the mutation of the virus”; this has nothing to do with the promotion of domestic vaccines. The entire statement is a knowledgable one written based on science. Many western scientists have the same perspective as his. I suggest Taiwanese that rather than being angry at what happened and linking everything to what happened, open yourself to learn some knowledgable perspective from others if there is one. In this case, this is one knowledgable perspective, but you fail to learn from him because of your emotions – that’s why many Taiwanese never learn something despite that there are some knowledgeable perspectives from local experts.
Further, although there was no available western vaccine and he indeed mentioned that it’s better to develop domestic vaccines, what he said is still true: “relying upon yourself is better than relying on others, and many countries are actively promoting the independent research and development of mass production.” So why does whether this sentence involve urging the Taiwanese to take the domestic vaccine or not matter in this statement? Because what he said that it’s better to develop a domestic vaccine than to seek help is still true; otherwise, Taiwan may not be able to get vaccines if there is a shortage of Western vaccines. Unless there won’t be a shortage when every country in the world is rushing to get vaccines, or manufacturing vaccines from Western countries on Taiwan’s own is a feasible option, it’s better to develop a domestic vaccine than to seek help.
There is only one kind of argument I kind of agree with the above Taiwanese: This is “a meaningless Monday morning quarterback.” Another person said, “Politicians are waiting to be marginalized before they are willing to speak the truth.” True. Since there is no available vaccine, saying people need to get vaccinated as fast as possible is like speaking with the benefit of hindsight, and politicians may know the truth before they are willing to speak, too. That said, if what you are angry at is “in hindsight” or “politicians know the truth before they are willing to speak”, that’s okay. But if you are simply angry with the fact that there was no available vaccine and therefore you are thinking all of his words are nonsense, you need to recognize this: It’s an unchangeable truth that there was no available vaccine, so why don’t you focus on the main idea of the entire argument: Sharing knowledge of how to race against the mutation of the virus? Again, rather than being angry at what happened and linking everything to what happened, open yourself to learn some knowledgeable perspectives from others if there is one.
13.(4).2 Reactions to the statement “The Next-Generation vaccine will arrive next year.”
When the minister of the Health and Welfare of Taiwan, Shi Zhong Chen said, “The Next-Generation vaccine will arrive next year.” Many Taiwanese are very angry, as there was no available vaccine.
Here is the responses of the Taiwanese:
“Talk about the arrival when it actually arrives. Not now!”
“How dare you talk about the arrival time of the new-order vaccine when you don’t even know when the previously-ordered ones will arrive? Only this government seems to be the most skilled at doing this kind of nonsense! “
“You’re talking about 2023 when there’s nothing for now?”
“Next year, we will say that Taiwan is really having difficulties in international diplomacy. Then again, the private sector will have to help run vaccines. No surprise. The things they do is always blank checks.” [13]https://today.line.me/tw/v2/article/JajoYk?utm_source=copyshare
These are also wrong reactions.
First, it is important to inform an estimated arrival time, so people can be aware of when the vaccines will be arrived instead of knowing nothing about the vaccine until the vaccines arrive. Isn’t providing an estimated arrival time common sense in the business world? Not to mention many Taiwanese work at manufacturing companies and need to give many estimated arrival times of many items to clients very often (That said, there are indeed some Taiwanese working in manufacturing companies are reluctant in providing an estimated arrival time). If something changes and thus the arrival time changes, just inform the public there is an update on the arrival time because of why. If you are angry that the arrival time change, do remember there are always some factors which a government can’t control, so I don’t know why you are still angry about it when there is a proper explanation from the government. You are just being picky.
“Talk about the arrival when it actually arrives. Not now”? So people just know nothing about the vaccine until the vaccines arrive? It’s important to inform an estimated arrival time to the public.
(This point is for all the above comments. I simply pick one worth disputing as this is a common comment in many events from Taiwanese)
Second, as for the point “talking about the arrival time of the new-order vaccine when you don’t even know when the previously-ordered ones will arrive”, contrary to what the commentator thought, this comment is nonsense. It may be true that the estimated arrival time of the previously-ordered vaccines had not been informed, but there is another estimated arrival time for another vaccine. Why not inform it when there is one? As the first point states, it is important to inform an estimated arrival time, so people can be aware of when the vaccines will be arrived instead of knowing nothing about the vaccine until the vaccines arrive.
Third, with regard to the point “Next year, we will say that Taiwan is really having difficulties in the international diplomacy. Then again, the private sector will have to help run vaccines….”, refer to one of the statements in the first point: “If you are angry that the arrival time change, do remember there are always some factors which a government can’t control, so I don’t know why you are angry about it when there is a proper explanation from the government. You are just being picky.” Since the government already provide an explanation, you need to judge whether this explanation is reasonable or not, not against one every time. Now, if it’s true that “difficulty in diplomacy” makes a delay in the arrival of vaccines, this is a reasonable reason. You are just being unreasonable and picky if you are still angry about it.
Additional Notes Of The Book
The Metric Used To Define Success
Bill Gates provides a lot of valuable perspectives in his book, but there is one mistake in the book I need to point out: The metric used to define the success of dealing with COVID-19. Discussing which factors might explain why cases are going up or down in some country, and what does the forecast look like, Bill Gates said he wanted to find out what the countries that are dealing most successfully with COVID have in common. Therefore, many scientists and he use excess mortality as the key metric. He says, “The first thing you have to do is define success, but that’s not as easy as you might think. You can’t just look at how often people with COVID in a given country went on to die from it…….What you really look for in a measure of success is a number that captures the overall impact of the disease. People who die of heart attacks because the hospital is too overwhelmed by COVID patients to treat them ought to be counted just as much as people who die of the disease itself. There’s a measure that does exactly that: It’s called excess mortality, and it includes people who die because of the disease’s ripple effect as well as those who die directly from COVID.” He further states, “Many of the countries with the lowest excess mortality (near zero or negative)—Australia, Vietnam, New Zealand, South Korea—did three things well early in the pandemic. They tested a large share of the population quickly, isolated people who tested positive or had been exposed, and carried out a plan for detecting, tracing, and managing cases that may have come across their borders.”
This is certainly a good metric to measure when it comes to the degree of success of dealing with COVID. This metric allows people to evaluate the degree of success of dealing with COVID-19 “in the big picture”. However, there are actually two types of purposes in terms of success: One is the success of “dealing with” COVID-19, or in other words, the success of “handling” COVID-19. Two is the success of “fighting against” COVID-19 or the success of “preventing” transmission of COVID-19. I do think the two purposes have been mixed together in the discussion of the book. Therefore, there is a possibility that many scientists would mix the two purposes when discussing relevant topics as well.
Let me explain it. Ok, assume the purpose of some scientists is to find out what the countries that prevent transmission of COVID most successfully have in common, I don’t think that the success should only be evaluated from a big-picture point of view; the success should also be evaluated based on some specific and important purposes. Further explain it, as the metric of excess mortality includes people who die because of the disease’s ripple effect such as people who die of heart attacks because the hospital is too overwhelmed by COVID patients to treat them, excess mortality is only a good metric in “how well a country ‘handle’ COVID-19”, but can’t use it to evaluate “how well a country ‘prevent’ transmission of COVID-19”. If you want to define the degree of success of dealing with COVID, which Bill Gates wants, yes, excess mortality is the right metric; however, if you want to find out what the countries that prevent transmission of COVID most successfully have in common, the number of cases in a country should be the main metric for evaluation. Hence, if there is any person who wants to find out “what factors explain why cases are going up or down” and therefore wants to have a metric to measure, the correct metric that represents this purpose should be “the number of cases in a country”, not “excess mortality”.
Scientists and Bill Gates concluded that the quick action of testing, isolating, tracing, and managing cases are the main factors that contribute to the success of dealing with COVID-19 in some countries. These factors certainly help in “dealing with (handling)” COVID-19, but that’s because they help to reduce the number of cases in a country, thus reducing the workload of local hospitals, which is one result we seek when we want the success of “dealing with (handling)” COVID-19. There are many other factors that are irrelevant to the prevention of transmission and can be the ones that help people handle the rising number of cases and treat all patients whose diseases are not COVID-19 in the meantime. For example, is it possible to train hemodialysis patients to do hemodialysis on their own early before a pandemic [14]https://www.davita.com/treatment-services/home-hemodialysis/a-brief-overview ? This can reduce the number of patients who need treatments from big hospitals. The number of local clinics in a country that is able to prescribe insulin and give insulin injections to diabetes patients as alternatives to hospitals is also a factor in helping handle the rising number of a disease during a pandemic [15]https://www.cqc.org.uk/guidance-providers/adult-social-care/diabetes-insulin-use [16]https://heho.com.tw/archives/149170 . As for heart attacks, there is a flying ambulance drone developed by a student in the Netherland that can deliver AEDs (a type of first aid equipment for heart attacks) to patients with heart attacks[17]https://www.forbes.com/sites/larryhusten/2014/10/29/grad-student-invents-flying-ambulance-drone-to-deliver-emergency-shocks/?sh=67d063341bfc . Though it’s still a problem to treat such patients after giving first aid if hospitals are overloaded, it at least resolves part of the problems if this solution is feasible. These solutions for certain diseases should also be viewed as a factor contributing to “dealing with” COVID-19 well if a country does so. Despite that such factors of helping in handling a pandemic are not as important as the factors of preventing transmissions, the two types of factors are still different in some ways. The main purpose of the above factors – the quick action of testing, isolating, tracing, and managing cases – should be “prevent” transmission of COVID-19. Judging from the conclusion that Bill Gates wrote in the book, I think the two purposes: the success of “dealing with” COVID-19, and the success of “fighting against” / “preventing” COVID-19 have been mixed together in this book. When simply talking about COVID, it’s okay to mix the two purposes together; nevertheless, if you are going to enact some measures to face a pandemic, it’s better to distinguish the two purposes.
This is the end of this article of The Additional Lessons Should Be Taken In This Pandemic. I hope you can consider some of my suggestions. Thanks, and have a good day.
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Chrissy Slora
The articles published in this website are all written by Chrissy Slora. Chrissy Slora aims to make people learn about how the world can be better and provide her intelligent and wise insight by writing about various topics from technology to issues happening in the world. Follow her on social media: Facebook | Twitter | Linkedin