Taiwan adds two more confirmed Covid-19 cases

Photo: Focus Taiwan

Taiwan today added two more Covid-19 cases to their tally, increasing the number to 34. Confirmed case 33 is a fella in his 30's who returned from a trip to Japan (where I was booked to go, but thankfully the company I booked with cancelled our return flight, so we cancelled our trip and got refunded).

He reported himself as being sick on his return from Japan, and said that he was in a group tour with 31 people. The CDC (Center for Disease Control) have determined that the timeline he give them means the likelihood is that he caught the virus on his trip to Japan, in Osaka. The exact location of the holiday I had looking forward to for months! Thanks Covid-19 for ruining it.

The other case - number 34, was a woman in her 50's with a history of chronic illness. She has no case history of travel abroad, and the CDC workers are currently trying to trace her timeline to figure out who she has came into contact with other than the care workers who have been treating and looking after her.

From reading what little info has been released on the two cases myself, it seems that case 33 has a chance of infecting his tour group, which is unclear now if they are Taiwanese, or if the tour was a group tour from Taiwan. The potential for the flight to have someone else infected seems high, is a logical thought process.

The other case, number 34 seems like she may have spent a lot of times in hospitals and being cared for, which shows that the temperature checks put in place at hospitals aren't that great when it comes down to spotting who is infected and who isn't.

The potential is extremely high for a lot of people to be infected in the hospital, for example, if she infects some doctors, then just think how many people a doctor will have contact with for the 14 day incubation period to set in.

The risk for a big spread of infections, that have been seen in Italy, Japan, Korea, Iran and China is getting higher each day in Taiwan. The fight continues to not let it happen, but as each week passes it becomes more difficult.

I also read in the Guardian that masks do help a bit, and no matter what people are telling you online, it is worse than seasonal flu! Any little help a mask gives us for not getting infected is worth it, but the key point is wash your hands often and don't rub your eyes, or face often without washing your hands.

The underbelly of Taiwanese society rears its Brexit crew styled head with patient 32

Taiwan is a fine place, generally, most people who come here to visit, work or for whatever other reason enjoy it, and the majority of Taiwanese people are friendly to all visitors regardless of nationality, race, or sexuality.

Then there are the others, when you scrape the surface there are a discriminatory and arrogant minority. This minority, tend to look down on South East Asian labour at best, and at worst are outright racist or abusive to them.

This hypocrisy is often witnessed and is very real. Folk are happy to have a cheap imported workforce, or people willing to do the jobs that Taiwanese aren't willing to do, but equally happy to point the finger when any 'issue' arises or is 'created'. They are akin to the Brexit Crew in their views of immigrants.

Today the news has been awash with one such case, Taiwan's CDC (Center for Disease Control) released the locations where patient 32 had been in Taipei and New Taipei City. It then transpired that patient 32 turned out to be an illegal immigrant working as a carer for the elderly.

She was caring for the old chap in the latest family cluster, however once it became aware the whole family was infected with COVID-19, afraid of being found out that she was illegal, and obviously worried. So she did what most illegal workers will often do in similar circumstances, she did a runner.

Then what happened next, is an indicator of how happy Taiwanese are to hire an illegal worker, she had already found another job caring for an old codger in some other family. Families are happy to hire an undocumented worker, but equally as happy to lay the blame at their door too. If the family had have got the worker the correct documents then she wouldn't have felt the need to run off in the first place.

The internet has been in a rage with how this 'illegal' ran away when she found out the family was infected, but also they're in a rage because she live streamed herself in quarantine, and some crafty bastard saw on the drip that the hospital name she was at was wrote on it. Which she also got blamed for. Should she have been live streaming, probably not. Is it crime of the century, probably not. But it does show Taiwan's underbelly regarding the fascination with 'cheapness' in regards to their attitude about hiring 'cheap labour', but are equally as quick to throw them on under the bus too.

The lady didn't order the infection on Shopee, she caught it while not being supported by the family for legal documents therefore not really being protected by the any kind of laws, all while caring for Taiwan's elderly, something Taiwanese families don't seem overly keen to do themselves.

Breakdown of Taiwan's COVID-19 cases

Infographic: CNA

Taiwan's Central News Agency (CNA) have released a new infographic showing the breakdown of all the COVID-19 cases that are currently confirmed in Taiwan. As of the 25th February 2020, there are 32 confirmed cases, with the most recent case being a foreign caregiver who was taking care of patient 27.

As is clear on the infographic, the last nine confirmed cases, the source of infection is unknown. This is a worrying turn of events, because until case 24, the Centre for Disese Control (CDC) mostly managed to locate the original source of infection for the majority of cases.

For now, the last 9 infections are at least all infected, in a case that is determined a 'family cluster' but the worry is it may turn into 'community infection'. How these two differentiate is that a 'family cluster' is infections spreading through families only, but on the other hand a 'community cluster' is a host of cases spreading through a whole community, like what has been seen in the cult church in South Korea, which shows how tragic a 'community cluster' can end up. South Korea had 51 confirmed cases this time last week, then after a 'community cluster' confirmed cases in South Korea are now over 1000 and increasing each day.

This shows how quickly the virus is spreading once it gets into the community. Therefore the major concern regarding the last 9 cases are that the CDC cannot locate the source of this families' infection. What does this mean for Taiwan? Does that mean the virus is already spreading in the community already? If so we could see cases increase daily.

What apparently bumped the infection numbers in Korea, and Italy was a super spreader. This is someone with a high viral load, who infects more people than the median. If the coronavirus is spreading in Taiwan (because it has been reported that people can have no symptoms but be infected) all it would take for the numbers to blast up like Korea and Italy would be one of these super spreaders.

In my opinion, the virus has broke past the CDC's superb efforts in Taiwan to keep the Coronavirus out, but people getting infected without knowing where from is a big red flag which is a major concern.