Hi! I sincerely hope that you are healthy and safe during these times of the international epidemic crisis. As a Taiwanese, I’m really proud of my country that our overall performance in preventing the virus and how all of us united together to fight the pandemic. According to the data of today (March 20th), there are 135 confirmed cases and 2 deaths in Taiwan. However, our people learned it from the tragic experiences of the past—in Taiwan, approximately 81 people out of the 346 infected died of the SARS outbreak in 2003. Then, H1N1 and MERS followed along. We have long been taught our painful lesson.
Extended Winter Break
Originally, our winter break was supposed to be January 17th till February 10th. After the outbreak, our Ministry of Education announced that our break was extended and that all students, elementary till high school, won’t return to school until February 25th. Before the announcement, no one really fully realized the seriousness of the virus… and then people started ridiculously storing face masks.
The Face Masks Policy
One thing that our government was really efficient about was setting up a group responsible for epidemic prevention on January 20th, but it was chaos before the policy was established. People would wait in lines for hours in order to buy a facemask. Most of the time they return empty-handed and disappointed. It was also extremely stressful for the pharmacy or convenience store staff when people are getting exasperated. Even though they put on signs that read there are no more face masks, hand sanitizers, cleaning alcohol, etc., people are still stubbornly ignoring those signs and constantly asking for them. As you can see from these pictures below, some of these signs are… err, quite creative 😂. (Image credit: https://udn.com/news/story/120958/4316858)
Fortunately, on February 6th, the government established the face mask policies. In Taiwan, we have something called the National Health Insurance (NHI), making our medical resources very much more affordable. With our NHI cards, the government ensures that everyone is able to purchase face masks. (Image credit: https://www.facebook.com/mohw.gov.tw/posts/1471266526373094/)
School Life Now
Since February 25th, I have been going to school for nearly a month now. Things are normal… just a little bit different. All assemblies and other forms of mass gatherings were canceled. I happen to be the class leader for the semester and all hard work fell upon me 😒. This is our daily routine:
6:50 a.m. Get on the school bus for school. Face masks required in enclosed spaces, of course.
7:40 a.m. Arrive in my classroom. Everyone’s body temperature, including teachers’, must be taken and recorded on a form that must be turned in to the health center by Friday afternoon.
8:00 a.m. Classmates returned with a bucket of bleach. Everyone wipes their seats and desks with bleach for sterilization.
12:10 p.m. All people washed and sprayed cleaning alcohol on their hands for lunch. Students of different grades take turns heading to the cafeteria to avoid mass gatherings.
12:40 p.m. Body temperatures must be taken and recorded again.
13:20 p.m. Sprayed cleaning alcohol onto hands again before the first period in the afternoon
17:10 p.m. Another school day ends. Again, face masks are absolutely required during the bus trip back home.
