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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

#171

Post by kilroy_jones »

onetimemanytime wrote: post #168
beefok wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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!

>> That sounds like the way forward, I wish things were working out that way here! (USA) The virus will go soon enough, one way or another, the surveillance state built for it, will not.

The surveillance state is already here, whether we like it or not.

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

#172

Post by batushka3 »

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.

Lot of western people admire and want efective containment like in far east. Thing is, the success of measures is driven by submisive asian sociaties. Tell italian, spaniard or any other european to stay at home - full streats and parks of 'feeling well it's not your business'. Now police catches and fines. Asians in the mean while put up their masks and done what instructed.

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

#173

Post by oceanofsolaris »

onetimemanytime wrote: post #169
endymi0n wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A fascinating counterpoint to this is the German government, who not just as probably the first country did something distinctly different to quarantine (it's called contact prohibition and you can go anywhere you like as long as you don't meet with more than one person not from your household), but also rejected mass cell phone surveillance plans by a large margin. People here are mostly calm, cautious and despite a…

>> People here are mostly calm, cautious and despite a few outliers have largely high compliance rates from everything I see on the streets. Shouldn't the virus spread little by little so people gain immunity and the hospitals can manage the number of patients? I doubt we can continue this shutdown for 12-18 months (vaccine) and who knows if meds cure it.

I think there are still some unknowns (number of infections without any symptoms, etc.), but so far, this approach doesn't seem viable: If we keep infections low enough that the health care system can deal with the severe cases, it will take us more than two years to develop herd immunity. By that time, we will (hopefully) have a vaccine anyways.

So the better strategy might be to not drive the health system to its brink (also not clear how well it could sustain that strain for long anyways) and instead keep infection numbers very low until we have a vaccine (while opening society and the economy as much as possible).

In each case, we need to keep R0 more or less exactly at 1.0 . If it is any bigger, we have exponential spread which will quickly overwhelm the health care system. If it is much smaller, we have gone overboard with containment measures and should relax them to ease the burden for society. The only difference is how much strain is put on the health care system (which is usually already operating close enough to capacity without a pandemic).

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

#174

Post by Taniwha »

batushka3 wrote: post #172
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.

Lot of western people admire and want efective containment like in far east. Thing is, the success of measures is driven by submisive asian sociaties. Tell italian, spaniard or any other european to stay at home - full streats and parks of 'feeling well it's not your business'. Now police catches and fines. Asians in the mean while put up their masks and done what instructed.

We're ALL going into at least a month's quarantine here in NZ in 24 hrs - the government hasn't just sprung it on us, they've worked up to it over the past few weeks, they started putting people coming from some countries (China, Iran, Italy) into 2 weeks isolation, then everyone entering, now we're putting the entire country into at least a month's isolation.

At the same time they've been making changes to support people who's jobs are going away (tourism is big, it's collapsed) and to keep businesses running (last week), mortgage holidays (today).

It's not going to be easy, there's going to at least be a recession, and we're likely to be cut off in some form for far longer than a month.

So yes you can do what China and other Asian countries have done in the West, but you do need real leaders capable of framing an issue so that the whole society can get behind it

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

#175

Post by esotericn »

cat199 wrote: post #134
jlokier wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks! I wasn't aware of the German approach. It would be very heartening if the German strategy works. And I really like the way Germany remains consistently conscious of personal values, things like rejecting mass surveillance and looking for another way. It's one of the things I like best about Germany. But it really depends how people behave next. In the UK, the government has announcement a bigger lockdown with…

> will only work if people actually comply. this is pretty easy to enforce: see N>2 people, fine/ticket/arrest/whatever.

Assuming you have enough enforcement officers.

The UK barely has enough to deal with crime at the best of times.

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

#176

Post by kwhitefoot »

endymi0n wrote: post #63
jordwest wrote: post #21

Yuval Noah Harari (author of Sapiens) wrote a piece [1] on how we're now facing a choice between authoritarian surveillance and citizen empowerment, and how a decision made in this crisis could set the standard for the future. [1] https://www.ft.com/content/19d90308-6858-11ea-a3c9-1fe6fedcc...

A fascinating counterpoint to this is the German government, who not just as probably the first country did something distinctly different to quarantine (it's called contact prohibition and you can go anywhere you like as long as you don't meet with more than one person not from your household), but also rejected mass cell phone surveillance plans by a large margin. People here are mostly calm, cautious and despite a…

Roughly similar here in Norway. We are just encouraged to stay at home, work from home, go out shopping only when necessary and stay at least a metre away from people and we are forbidden from shaking hands. Not a lot of enforcement on an individual level. but it seems to be working.

It works well here partly I suppose because the local culture doesn't expect you to get very close even at the best of times. One metre of separation is pretty normal so now we cross the road to get out of each other's way.

Not everyone gets it of course and bars are now closed by edict in Oslo because they would not enforce the one metre separation rule.

Shops are open and have signs saying keep a metre apart and places where you queue have marks on the floor to show how much distance this is. Most also have alcohol gels and single use gloves available for those who want to use them.

There are also signs saying please pay by contactless card or mobile app if you can.

I go out for a walk for about an hour every day as usual and now it feels like Sunday every day.

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

#177

Post by RaoulP »

eloisius wrote: post #155
RaoulP wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, you don’t. As a tourist I could get a 30 day (unlimited data) SIM card with a phone number, over the counter. I detailed my experience in another comment.

You showed them your passport. Locals have to show a national ID.

That's true. I misunderstood the original question.

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

#178

Post by Mvandenbergh »

esotericn wrote: post #175
cat199 wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> will only work if people actually comply. this is pretty easy to enforce: see N>2 people, fine/ticket/arrest/whatever.

Assuming you have enough enforcement officers. The UK barely has enough to deal with crime at the best of times.

No country has enough enforcement officers to be everywhere all the time.

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

#179

Post by knolax »

jb775 wrote: post #138

> the system has drawn few [privacy] complaints in Taiwan Yeah until after the coronavirus craziness is over and the (now tested) system is used by China to round up dissenters

You know this is an article about Taiwan right?

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

#180

Post by vidarh »

rootusrootus wrote: post #55
alkonaut wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It works well enough if everyone considers the best of their society as more important than their own freedoms. So it's pretty easy to extrapolate where this might work and where it would be fruitless.

The libertarian types who think the gov't shouldn't exercise this kind of authoritarian power also think their plan is the best for society.

As a "libertarian type" well out on the left, I see the simple resolution to this that if you're prepared to risk the health of others, you're free to do that as long as you do it with other consenting adults apart from the rest of us, and expect not to be allowed contact with the rest of us until its safe.

Freedom for everyone also means freedom for people to band together and decide not to want anything to do with those who don't want to follow their rules.

Especially in this case, where the health risk arguably makes it aggression to try to force contact on others.

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