Just talked to someone from Taiwan

[Auntlouisa]

It's so frustrating. Taiwan has a population of 24 million. They've had 7 deaths. All schools and workplaces are operating as normal. They've been told to be careful, but that's it. Their government acted quickly and efficiently and everyone's been wearing face masks from the outset. Their economy will presumably be largely unaffected.
Why do we put up with the leadership we've had on this?

The due to the previous SARS outbreaks being less infectious and not reaching our side of the globe we naively considered these not our problem and nothing to worry about and was complacent. Not until it was far too late.

Wearing a mask is a part of day to day routine in East Asia. They haven’t stopped people dying from other infectious respiratory illnesses. But they are a sign of other responsible behaviour - someone who wears a mask to protect other people is more likely to wash their hands periodically, more likely to avoid non-essential journeys, more likely to go into self-imposed lockdowns. The whole culture is different.

Taiwan is awesome in so many ways. I just don’t think you can compare it to the UK unfortunately, they are VERY different places despite both being relatively progressive and civilised. I don’t think the UK have handled this well but I think Taiwan have been better placed to handle this that the UK could have been.

I visited Taiwan not long after SARS and it had clearly affected habits. People used to cover their faces if they passed us, their was hand sanitiser by lifts etc.

Having visited Hong Kong in recent years, I think it's fair to say a lot of these habits have stuck. In the case of HK, they were quick to identify that most of their cases came from mainland China and closed that border very quickly.