Living in Taiwan during the first Coronavirus outbreak

 

It wasn't a long time ago when I wrote about coronavirus and how I felt being stuck here in Taiwan. The island nation was one of the few countries in the world that has dodged the virus completely. We did have cases nearly every day, but these came in from the outside and were put into quarantine. For over a year the system worked flawlessly, until last month when a foreign pilot spread the UK variant inside the airport hotel and the staff spread it to family members and friends, and some of them spread it to random strangers, especially in Taipei. And so Taiwan has its first large local outbreak since the start of the pandemic. We had some 5-10 cases per day already last week, but two days ago we got a much bigger daily number for the first time: 180 cases. A day later, which happens to be today, it's already 202. I'm already nervous when I think about what the numbers will be tomorrow or a week from today. I'm afraid they'll be in the thousands, and higher. 

Thoughts about being COVID-free in Taiwan, but feeling stuck

 

The Year of the Ox is here in Taiwan, and it feels like everybody is finally letting out a big sigh of release. We just had the first domestic COVID cluster in a hospital here after many months of no local infections. The government put several thousand people in quarantine and the strategy seemed to have paid off. Only 20 people were infected so far, and it seems we avoided a bigger outbreak. Of course a big test will be the current Lunar New Year holidays. We need to see if two weeks from now there's a new outbreak, but I hope not. It's been a very weird year for us here, being stuck on this island but basically COVID free for a year now.

Being in Taiwan in 2020

 

A few days ago I was thinking about how surreal this year was for me. It was a year unlike any other, a year where for the most part I wasn't able to plan anything but just sit and wait it out. Now you may rightfully say: You're not the only one. That's very accurate. I bet millions of people had a similar experience; it's definitely one of those years that we won't ever forget (similarly to 2001 for example). And yet, very few people could claim that they lived through the coronavirus pandemic in a country that was for the most part virus free. Sure, we have had new cases in Taiwan almost every day, but since April every such case was someone coming to Taiwan from the outside. These people were then quarantined, and medically treated, and thus there was no new local spread yet.