I have been talking about this virus almost since the end of 2019. Yes, that's how early our government warned us about the possibility of it spreading, while China refused to admit that something is going around in Wuhan. Fast forward to January, and Lunar Calendar New Year then zip to March. @halesbells38 has been tired of listening to me give daily updates of the China Wuhan Virus since I haven’t stopped updating her for months.
I guess my worries come from what I saw on the news when SARS was happening here in Taiwan in 2003. There were a lot of slow reactions and even wrong actions taken when it started spreading in Taiwan. Not just people, but also our government, nobody was familiar with how to handle this huge infectious disease. By the way, we were not in WHO, and we are still not in WHO, thanks to China. We had no further information of SARS, the details of it spreading and how to stop it. That totally left us without choices, but had to fix it in our own way. We ended up losing 37 lives because of SARS. I still remember the Chinese officer who represented the Chinese government for a WHO meeting in 2003. His response to the Taiwanese media that raised questions like, “Why can’t the Taiwanese government join the meeting to get help and information for our people?”, was "Who cares about you!" with his despise face.
Thanks to many of our professional researchers, they still developed more than 10 different cures by 2004 and actually provided and shared the information worldwide. Despite this, it still did not give us any chance to even become an observer in the WHO, again because of China. (and both of these two viruses started from mainland China for sure)
When our government noticed a weird virus that started in mainland China around December last year. They watched it and started telling people here something might be wrong from the news program. So basically, most Taiwanese knew what might happen in the near future, although we all hoped that we were so wrong. When the virus thing got bigger and bigger in Wuhan, China, our government decided to take action in every aspect. The test, face masks, border control and medical resources including isolated wards and everything. They prohibited the export of face masks and made sure the price of them did not go crazy by controlling the quantity, price and distribution channels directly by the central government since February. We even got calls from our CDC on the second day of the Lunar calendar New Year to double-check the production of our face shield. Can you imagine someone from the government to contact you the day after Christmas? I was totally impressed by how fast and serious they handled this while a lot of countries were not taking it seriously at all. (Maybe it's because many countries chose to believe WHO's evaluation, and it was not a concern to them at all back in February.)
Since we are not a member in WHO, and we are also kind of isolated, I'm grateful that our government decided and has been taking actions before everyone sees the issues. I'm grateful for all the efforts that our government has put in, and also all of the medical professionals who are still sacrificing so much, but still are there taking care of people. I'm grateful for those people who care more about the supply of face masks and protection gears than profits during this hard time. I'm grateful for all those workers who work day and night, trying to boost the production to the most. I'm grateful that most people are still trying to stay calm and follow the government's guidance. I'm grateful that we have public health insurance that is so affordable that people do not have to hide or wait until the last moment but to take the test immediately when some symptoms show up.
