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Taiwan's new 'electronic fence' for quarantines leads wave of virus monitoring

reuters.com

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Re: Taiwan's new 'electronic fence' for quarantines leads wave of virus monitoring

#111

Post by SamReidHughes »

akiselev wrote: post #98
njarboe wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The revolution in the US from England started with a tax revolt. The founders hoped to create a new nation where the government didn't try and maximize its tax on citizens and just tax enough to maintain the functions of government. The wealthy were not taxed at high rates in the US and Federal revenue was around 3% of GDP until the income tax was implemented. One could hope for a governing class that would let peopl…

> The founders hoped to create a new nation where the government didn't try and maximize its tax on citizens and just tax enough to maintain the functions of government. That's not at all what they hoped to create. The colonists didn't write no taxation or minimize taxation but no taxation without representation . Don't take my word for it, though, they wrote up a whole list of grievances (most of which have to do wi…

That was just a slogan. They weren't going to accept taxation that came with representation in Parliament.

They were happy to tax themselves -- they just didn't want to get taxed by England.

Re: Taiwan's new 'electronic fence' for quarantines leads wave of virus monitoring

#112

Post by virtue3 »

beefok wrote: post #81
lifeformed wrote: post #32

I'm in Taiwan in day 6 of home quarantine right now. We get a call every morning to check up on our health. I don't mind it, it's a simple and effective method and it gives me confidence in the government and society, knowing that everyone is taking the situation seriously. Once I'm out of quarantine, I can feel comfortable being outside living a normal life, knowing that all known potential carriers are contained.

That sounds like the way forward, I wish things were working out that way here! (USA) Off-topic but, I just discovered your music on spotify a few weeks ago and can't stop listening to your albums, amazing stuff man!

... Their music is legit good. Thanks for pointing that out!

Re: Taiwan's new 'electronic fence' for quarantines leads wave of virus monitoring

#113

Post by daveFNbuck »

bilal4hmed wrote: post #6

Tracking like this has been one of the reasons for Singapores success to curbing the virus. https://www.therakyatpost.com/2020/03/23/what-malaysia-can-l... ""If people don’t have symptoms, they’re put in home quarantine. And home quarantine is very strict. A couple times a day, you’ll get an SMS and you have to click on a link that will show where your phone is. In case you cheat and leave your phone at home with som…

They send people door to door to interact face-to-face with known carriers? That sounds like a bad idea.

Re: Taiwan's new 'electronic fence' for quarantines leads wave of virus monitoring

#115

Post by jlokier »

rootusrootus wrote: post #88
RivieraKid wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The plan is to lift the lockdown after a few weeks when the number of new cases is low enough for targeted interventions - thorough contact tracing and quarantining.

Whose plan is that? My gov't has only told the citizens about their plan to shut things down, they haven't elaborated on what happens next. Just today we took the next step and made it a legal requirement that everyone stay at home. In our jurisdiction of just over 4 million people, we have 191 positive tests and 5 deaths. The number of new cases is already tiny, so how much lower do they have to go before we can swi…

Governments appear to be still working out the details of what to do, but you can look at those countries on the leading edge to see that they do come out of shutdown gradually and have other measures in place that are somewhat effective for COVID-19.

> In our jurisdiction of just over 4 million people, we have 191 positive tests and 5 deaths. The number of new cases is already tiny, so how much lower do they have to go before we can switch to targeted interventions?

Targetted interventions may not be sufficient if you're at the leading each of the wave - the exponentially rising part, or after the inflection point but still rising. In that phase the number of people actually carrying the virus and passing it on is much higher than the number of positive tests, most of them are asymptomatic spreading it (or were before shutdown), and nobody knows who they are. It can be at the start of an exponential growth, even with small numbers, and even if the numbers dropped temporarily.

> so how much lower do they have to go before we can switch to targeted interventions?

It totally depends why they are low, and for how long.

Re: Taiwan's new 'electronic fence' for quarantines leads wave of virus monitoring

#116

Post by jlokier »

ghaff wrote: post #41
jschwartzi wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Authoritarianism is occasionally useful when collective action is necessary to prevent a major disaster. Individual people have a tendency to take everything they can, like in cases where entire stores have been bought out of meat or toilet paper or cleaning supplies. An authoritarian approach of dictating what a person can and cannot do at a very fine-grained level can prevent these things from happening. For exampl…

The thing is that I suspect that the problem is mostly not (yes, with some widely publicized exceptions) that you have people individually buying hundreds of rolls of toilet paper or dozens of eggs, but LOTS of people figuring that a bit of buffer stock in the house can't hurt because who knows what the future will bring. I know in my case I did a couple shopping trips before the panic buying started. I bought nothin…

My pet theory adds that people were previously eating out a lot, and getting snacks from little shops. Now all of a sudden they are getting everything from supermarkets and cooking more often at home, so even without any hoarding, there's been a surge in the number of people eating home-made food at home.

Re: Taiwan's new 'electronic fence' for quarantines leads wave of virus monitoring

#117

Post by pcr0 »

jlokier wrote: post #110
bilal4hmed wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Permanent Residence thats good. Rules are rules, especially in these times.

That's terrible. PR is supposed to be "more or less a citizen, now stay for long enough and you can become a citizen". Not "we'll call it permanent but it doesn't mean anything". Rules means justice and enforcement too. You're not supposed to have a different justice system for people on PR than for citizens. They should have jailed the person, if that's what they do to citizens, or done whatever else they do to citi…

Singapore's justice system is geared towards making extreme examples over fairness.

Re: Taiwan's new 'electronic fence' for quarantines leads wave of virus monitoring

#118

Post by paxys »

bilal4hmed wrote: post #11
cma wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

PR?

Permanent Residence thats good. Rules are rules, especially in these times.

Would you also support revoking someone's citizenship because "rules are rules"?

Re: Taiwan's new 'electronic fence' for quarantines leads wave of virus monitoring

#119

Post by robjan »

qwerty456127 wrote: post #94
flyt wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then don't travel to Taiwan for a few months.

What about the rest of the time? Is it easy to live without a phone in Taiwan? Can you buy a non-locked phone and a prepaid SIM card anonymously?

Only if it's an a SIM purchased from abroad. You need to produce a form of national ID if you want to purchase a SIM in Taiwan.

Re: Taiwan's new 'electronic fence' for quarantines leads wave of virus monitoring

#120

Post by Gustomaximus »

state_less wrote: post #66
twomoretime wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>and how a decision made in this crisis could set the standard for the future This here is really the problem, none of these emergency changes should necessarily become permanent. Income tax started out as a war fund some one or two hundred years ago... But I sense we are fighting human nature.

And if not permanent, more common. Authorities might say, "We did it before and this flu is half as dangerous, so just to be safe, let's put everyone on the digital leash again." This sort control comes with its own costs. Personally, I'd rather take my risks and live free.

This is why democracy is so important. It is the pressure valve to excess. Sure some government will abuse this type of feature but there will be a point where people push back. Maybe not soon enough for initial abuse but eventually.
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