Coronavirus by GCCJr – Made in Taiwan (I commissioned this drawing for $50.)
Life is about to undergo significant change as the US and Europe begin societal lockdowns to slow the exponential spreading of Coronavirus.
As a contrast, this is what life is like in Taiwan – first person and anecdotally.
Taiwan Responds Quickly and Decisively
We were skiing in Japan when news of the coronavirus outbreak in China first surfaced, just before Chinese New Year.
As with SARS, China was quick to say it was no big deal and most likely not contagious. I rode the chairlift with a woman from Shanghai who said she was concerned she might not be able to fly home but also that it was nothing to worry about.
By the time we were heading back to Taiwan, the lockdown in Wuhan had already begun. Winnie bought a few face masks at a pharmacy for the flight home.
China disallows the World Health Organization from treating Taiwan as a separate entity – so it is on its own. Thus, Taiwan was quick to act, operating under the assumption that China’s disinformation machine was at work. “Fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can’t get fooled again.”
All flights from the Wuhan region were quickly screened and then shut down. Passengers from the region were tested and isolated, and their movements in the days prior traced in order to also quarantine those they had come in contact with.
On December 31, Chinese officials notified the World Health Organization that China had several cases of pneumonia. That day, the Taiwan Centers for Disease Control began monitoring passengers who arrived in the country from Wuhan. Government officials boarded flights from Wuhan as soon as they landed, monitoring passengers for symptoms.
Less than a week later, the government began monitoring people who had traveled from Wuhan since December 20.
“Suspected cases were screened for 26 viruses, including SARS and MERS,” the Stanford Health Policy report said. “Passengers displaying symptoms were quarantined at home and assessed whether medical attention at a hospital was necessary.” (source)
All public schools were immediately closed for an additional 3 weeks beyond the Chinese New Year holiday.
The export of face masks was banned and prices capped. The government then became the sole legal distributed of masks and other supplies, working with industry to build additional capacity. They are now producing 10 million per day and preparing to restart exports to help the rest of the world meet demand.
The 60 production lines, which normally take from four to six months to complete, were set up in 25 days
(source)
During this time we saw fewer people on the streets, and 90%+ of them wearing masks.
Quarantines are strict with severe fines. In some cases, people are isolated at home with a GPS phone/tracker, and the phone is called randomly day and night. If the phone isn’t answered or the GPS location doesn’t match the person’s home bad things happen.
In other cases, people are quarantined at a specially designated hotel or government facility… one guy was penalized 1 million NTD for leaving his room (about $33,000 USD.)
Thanks to the quick and decisive action of the Taiwan government, the extensive shutdowns happening in Europe and the US were not required. Total confirmed cases were limited to ~50 with one death.
Life at Present
Today life is basically the same as it was 3 months ago.
The only real change is that a 14-day automatic quarantine was recently implemented for people arriving from most of the United States due to lack of testing. This means my Mom’s visit to Taiwan had to be reschedule from end of March to end of September. On the plus side, she will be able to spend time with kid #2.
For the past 2 years, Jr’s school has done a simple health check at the door upon arrival – look for throat inflammation with a handheld flashlight, check the temperature, wash hands with a disinfectant spray. The only difference now is this test happens outside the main entrance so no parents enter the school, and the kids wear face masks. As a private school, it didn’t even close for the 3 week public school shutdown.
Restaurants have also implemented a simple health screen – temperatures are checked and hands washed with a disinfectant spray. Restaurants are definitely less busy than normal, but many are encouraging patrons to phone orders in – one of our favorite local places has a temporary 20% discount for takeout.
We do a lot of food delivery – the delivery fee is less than the $0.50/person bus fare to go to a restaurant. Delivery staff is no longer allowed into the building, so instead of walking 5 steps to our door I walk 10 steps to the elevator and 30 steps to the front gate.
Our building has also started putting plastic wrap over the elevator buttons. This is replaced daily.
For a couple weeks, the government was distributing residents’ face mask allocation through the pharmacies (government owned.) This created some long lines for people. Recognizing that this itself was a health risk, masks are now sent to the 7-11 nearest your home – no more lines / reduced human-to-human contact.
Today’s Schedule
I woke up at 6:30 am to join a friend for a 35 km bike ride. Then Jr and I rode bikes to school and I continued on to the grocery store to pick up ingredients for lunch at home.
The grocery store was mostly empty, fairly normal for a weekday morning. Everything was in stock and abundant. I asked one of the staff to clarify the price on the fish and ended up with 4 people helping me (I got the mackerel.)
Once I’m done writing this, one of the bulbs in Jr’s room has burned out. I need to borrow a ladder from the building’s maintenance staff and then bike to the corner store to get a replacement.
This afternoon Jr has roller blading class, and then we will stop by our favorite Japanese restaurant for dinner.
After dinner we will do our normal bedtime routine which includes lots of story time (we recently ordered a 12-pack of Dr. Seuss books that are a hit so far.)
Fairly typical and normal.
Coronavirus
The coronavirus itself is a pretty nasty creature – symptoms don’t appear for up to 14-days during which we are completely contagious.
If the virus isn’t contained immediately (e.g. Wuhan entire city quarantine, Taiwan and Korea style testing / quarantine / school shutdowns) then you have to ride the wave of death and economic collapse that follows (e.g. Northern Italy.)
The United States was slow to respond and as such will have some challenging times ahead. A 2-week shut down of all schools and businesses at least allows the spread to slow. If the hospitals are able to support those who have already contracted it, then hopefully the death rates are low. If not, within a few weeks to a few months we will all know multiple people who have died (not heard of, not a friend’s uncle, people we personally know.)
The economic impact will be longer lasting – the average person can’t afford a $400 emergency. Without government intervention the number of hourly workers and small businesses going bankrupt will begin to look like the Great Depression. Airlines, hotels, restaurants, retailers… will all struggle.
Please, do your part. Stay home. Keep away from people if you can’t. Help others where you can, especially the elderly and vulnerable.
Remember: If you are young and healthy, you can carry it home and kill your parents and grandparents. Stay home!
Summary
Life is about to undergo significant change. As Americans and Europeans undergo shutdowns of all but essential services.
Once the exponential growth has been curbed, we’ll be able to slowly return to a sense of normalcy as exemplified by our current life in Taiwan.
Remain optimistic and hopeful, but diligent and responsible.
Stay safe. Good luck.
Wow!!! Thank you for sharing!!
How sad that the United States doesn’t take the same measures. I wish we could buy those masks from your country, any chance we can get the link to buy them?
I don’t believe they are available. The coming surplus will probably be sent to medical staff in need first.
The masks themselves don’t really help if 90% of asymptomatic people aren’t wearing them. The idea is that it helps you prevent others from becoming sick, a sort of societal herd immunity.
I don’t remember hearing about #2 on the way before — congratulations! Glad to hear Taiwan’s response was swift and all is well there. We’re waiting it out in the US and eager to see what will happen in the weeks and months to come
Yes due in September! :)
Are you in lockdown?
Thanks for sharing, Jeremy. I’m glad that you and your family are safe!
So far so good!
So interesting to read your take from Taiwan. Seems that quick, decisive action saved Taiwan — but didn’t people query why schools were being shut if there hadn’t even been one Taiwanese death yet from Corona? Didn’t it seem like overreaction at the time? We are in rural Germany and after only a weekend of ‘social distancing’, I long for our old normalcy and miss the old life… hope everyone will stay healthy out there!
After SARS, people were extremely receptive. Overreaction means low health and economic impact. Under reacting gets you Iran, Italy, the US, etc..
Thanks, Jeremy. Medicare and several large commercial insurance companies have stepped up and will waive the out-of-pocket costs for the COVID-19 lab test. Also, if the Families First Coronavirus Response Act ever gets signed and codified, it will mandate the free test for everyone including and out-of-pocket costs associated with an ER/clinic visit to get the test. This also assumes we actually finally get moving on testing.
That said, treatment for COVID-19 remains a question. Therapeutic (treatment) services could still hit out-of-pocket costs so hopefully, we get a fix get put in for that soon.
Take care, Max
I think now free after the coronavirus relief bill? (Haven’t read it completely yet)
A good place to be. Stay safe!
You too! Where are you holed up now?
Thank you for sharing. Have been wondering how other countries are faring. Stay safe especially for mama and baby #2!!!!
Yes, being extra careful with Momma. From what we’ve read the virus doesn’t seem to impact the child in utero so small blessings.
The media may be creating way more fear than is necessary, or at least peoples reactions to the news may be way out of proportion to the actual danger. I hate to be insensitive, but when your 80 years old, any flu or virus is dangerous to your health and life expectancy. This pandemic at 1.4% total death rate (yet to be exactly determined and much lower for the vast majority of the population), is no where near as deadly as the Spanish Flu 2.5% death rate and yet it seams the end of the world is near.
New York Population – About 20,000,000
New York Coronavirus Deaths – 9 so far
New York Traffic Deaths per Day – 3
California Population – About 40,000,000
California Coronavirus Deaths – 10 so far
California Traffic Deaths per Day – 10
I will be watching the stats closely but so far much, much more dangerous to get into your car.
Most people testing positive for the coronavirus, are sent home and not to the hospital to get better unless their condition gets significantly worse.
Please wash your hands frequently.
Please keep a safe distance from others.
Please stay at home if sick, fever, etc.
Okay, flame away
key words: so far
Now do Italy and Iran
One factor affecting the country’s death rate may be the age of its population—Italy has the oldest population in Europe, with about 23% of residents 65 or older, according to The New York Times. The median age in the country is 47.3, compared with 38.3 in the United States, the Times reported. Many of Italy’s deaths have been among people in their 80s, and 90s, a population known to be more susceptible to severe complications from COVID-19, according to The Local.
Source
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-deaths-from-coronavirus-are-so-high-in-italy/
This is why its important to take this very seriously:
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/03/13/815502262/flattening-a-pandemics-curve-why-staying-home-now-can-save-lives
Think of everybody rushing to stock toilet paper. Except now everyone is sick and it is ventilators that are out of stock.
Thanks for sharing your experiences. It is amazing how low the numbers have been in Taiwan, but shows how the aggressive initial responses have paid off.
We were supposed to travel to Korea and Taiwan in April. A couple of uncles from Taiwan called us and said “don’t come; nobody is going outside.” So we canceled our trip. Still have a trip to Europe planned in late May; right now it is a wait and see on that one.
Not too many cases where we are in the US right now. Staying at home as much as possible.
Stay well and enjoy seeing life get back to normal!
I would also say don’t come. Best case you would probably have 14-day quarantine.
Thanks for your candor and encouragement – it’s helpful to hear. And good to be assured by you (as someone who has lived thru the coronavirus in Taiwan) that the sun will rise again. The U.S. might have a longer recovery period, though…time will tell. Be safe folks! God Bless.
Thank you, I hope this is the message people take away:
The seas are rough ahead, but this too shall pass.
Jeremy, thanks for sharing about your experience in Taiwan. Interesting to hear how different countries have been dealing with coronavirus.
So far, thankfully, where we live in the US, we’ve been mostly unaffected by coronavirus. Apparently, that may change soon. Recently, it’s been a little inconvenient to not be able to go to the gym, stop by the local brew pub to have a beer or go to our neighborhood coffee shop for a cappuccino, but that all seems like a pretty small price to pay if it slows down the spread of the virus and helps prevent ERs from getting overwhelmed.
Shutdowns associated with coronavirus are already hurting Americans who work at hourly service jobs pretty badly. Friends and neighbors are unsure how they’re going to make their rent/car/student loan payments this month and into the future. Luckily, we’re not in that situation. Stock markets are down some, but we’ve got enough cash on hand to last until the end of 2020, and enough bonds to last for about 7 years, after that.
Good luck to you and your family and congrats on the new baby coming soon!
Indeed, it is a small price to pay. And much smaller than the price we would pay by waiting and doing nothing.
Best of luck to you too!
Hi jeremy,
Congratulations on your baby#2. I really admire how the Asian countries have handled this crisis. We are about a month late, hope it slows the spread. On a side note, what is your take on the stock market drop? Seems we hit a sudden break on a bull market. Much is due to panic and fear of the unknown. But some sectors will suffer massive losses this year.
Pretty wild, ain’t it?
20% of the US is employed in restaurants and tourism. All of those jobs are gone in a few weeks without trillions of stimulus. This will cascade throughout the rest of the economy, and the US will drop into a depression. Supposedly that stimulus starts any day now.
With stimulus, we also need massive investments in testing, medical supplies, and vaccine research. It’s not pretty.
We have lots of volatility right now because nobody has any clue what is going to happen next.
Yes, it has been quite a ride…like the Tower of Terror. Consensus is things will get worse. You mentioned your allocation has increased bond holdings. What does your current allocation look like: VTI versus other holdings. Thank you.
If I had to guess, we are now 80/20 or 75/25 stock/bonds – I’m filtering through this now for a Monday post. It’s the same as in 2019 except for changes in market value with the exception of a stock sale / bond purchase in March 2019.
Great perspective. Americans in particular relish in a sense of freedom. We as a society are going to have a hell of time being told what to do. However, as much as we don’t like it, our outcome is dependent on our willingness to play along. We now see in real-time the results of those who didn’t take things seriously enough. Thanks again.
“Many of us were too selfish to follow suggestions to change our behavior. Now we’re in lockdown and people are needlessly dying.”
https://www.bostonglobe.com/2020/03/13/opinion/coronavirus-cautionary-tale-italy-dont-do-what-we-did/
Taiwan certainly learned a few things after the SARs experience. It is good to see that Taiwan has been able to reduce the spread of the virus. Most of the countries haven’t been able to contain all that successfully. Just saw that Florida beaches are still packed with people.
Stay safe.
Now that everything is closing here in the States, we have to largely stay in our homes. Let’s see – we have a streaming TV service, Amazon Prime and Netflix, Kindle Unlimited, and our own home workout equipment. Along with a lot of TP and reasonable amount of food and liquids, I think we will somehow “manage”. Best wishes for everyone out there. Wash your hands and don’t cough or sneeze in my direction if you know what is good for you :)
Thanks for letting us know how it went. Glad everyone in your little family is safe.
Aus: 2010/Mar/09, 92 confirmed, 23% / day compound growth rate since.
Much hoarding preparation. Billions to ameliorate financial symptoms and nothing obvious on techno-logical response to treat cause. Just keep distance and wash.
Out of the tumult of the Chinese epidemic came effective treatments including:
• Remdesivir and chloroquine effectively inhibit the recently emerged novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) in vitro. Trials in progress in China. Confirming anecdotal evidence in Aus patients.
• Breakthrough: Chloroquine phosphate has shown apparent efficacy in treatment of COVID-19 associated pneumonia in clinical studies.
Also:
• University of Minnesota to test three drugs for COVID-19 patients to test efficacy of chloroquine as a “post-exposure prophylaxis”
Also many different vaccines being tested. Now… to ensure that more people don’t arrive at the hospitals than they can support.
We got lucky and were able to enter Taiwan last night (3/17), as the government announced that no more foreigners will be allowed to enter the country starting tomorrow (source: https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/3899387)
We were in Bali, Indonesia since 2/26 and have bee planning our escape plan over the weekend. We went from really loving Ubud (and planning to extend our stay for another month) to not feeling safe at all due when COVID19 was declare a pandemic and seeing the lack of infrastructure and preparedness for the country to deal with this situation.
As perpetual travelers, we decided to skip going back home (California / France) at the moment as we knew the spread was accelerating there. We have been looking at the safest places to be right now and our top choice were Singapore and Taiwan.
The country decided to put everyone staying in TW on a 14 day home self-quarantine starting at 4 pm on 3/17, which included us since we left Bali at 4:30 pm. We are really happy to do it because it’s the right thing to do and respect the people living here. We were planning to self-quarantine ourselves anyway because while we’ve been practicing social distancing (by staying mostly inside our villa in Bali for the past week), there was going to be a high chance to get exposed to infected people during our transit to TW.
As we arrived at the airport in TW, the CDC staff members took our phone numbers (which they tested on the spot) and our address so they could do surprise checks. Plus they had health forms and temperature checks for us to fill out through the quarantine. Our experience at the airport echoed your article and was it was a great testimony on the country’s effectiveness in controlling the virus. We’ve been quite impressed, to say the least.
Now that we successfully escaped Bali (which btw, started closing school on Monday and will stop accepting foreigners on Friday), we feel extremely grateful to be able to stay in TW for up to 3 months (we got a 90 days visa upon arrival). This will give us the time to monitor the situation back home and decide when it will be a good time for us to come see our family.
As for the quarantine, all is going well so far. We’ve been using Uber to get both groceries and food delivery to our Airbnb. (Please let us know if you have other English speaking services that you would recommend to us). Our Internet connection here is amazing (especially to compare to other SEA countries we’ve been over the past 6 months), so we will be happy to use this time to catch up on man things during our quarantine.
“Now… to ensure that more people don’t arrive at the hospitals than they can support.”:
Already approved pharmaceuticals – just not for CoVID-19 treatment.
Efficaciousness results could be obtained in days by treating confirmed infected – preferably those with no or mild symptoms – who would be the majority of infected and those most likely to spread infection.
This does not take a year to prove / disprove. It takes immediate action from bureaucrats and researchers.
completely agree
Uber is probably your best bet, although I haven’t used it for groceries. Glad you made it in.
Hey Jeremy, thanks for this post. Sounds like Taiwan did an amazing job in controlling the spread.
I’ve been under a pretty much lockdown for 6 days now. I’m in one of the high risk states and now all restaurants, bars, and schools are closed except takeout. I only went out once for groceries. It’s extremely tense here.
My job is fully remote now until further notice. I’ve realized that I miss speaking with my clients face to face but we’re managing well.
I’ve been reading some of your old
lifestyle posts and it’s given me some comfort. The finances are one thing but I’m looking forward back to getting back to normal life.
(Please move 2 posts to reply to Go Curry Cracker on March 18, 2020 at 5:23 am)
Taiwan reports 23 new cases of Wuhan coronavirus, total climbs to 100
https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/3899557
23 new patients mark Taiwan’s biggest single increase of Wuhan virus cases in one day with total reaching 100
Doubling time (days):
= LN(2) / LN(100 / (100 – 23))
= 2.7
Yes, most (all?) of those cases were linked to people arriving from outside Taiwan. (thus the recent bans on non-citizen arrivals)
“most (all?) of those cases were linked to people arriving from outside Taiwan”:
It has to arrive from somewhere. Detecting and isolating most arrivals slows the rate of increase. The initial number (N0) in the exponential function is smaller.
Sure. Where it came from is important for the tracking efforts, and informs the decision to close the border. Looks like NZ and Australia doing the same now.
Most detections occur when symptoms present. For a day or so prior, the infected are infectious. The incubation is ~14 days. Then any non- or mild symptomatic might not be detected and cause additional infections.
Then the exponential growth of infections commences.
In Aus first detection 2020-01-25, then most cases due to arrivals, then exponential growth (local infections) commenced ~2020-03-09.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_coronavirus_pandemic_in_Australia
Yeah, standard virus behavior. For the early cases, government also traced the movement of people confirmed with the virus and tested those they had come in contact with (coffee shop staff, bar staff, etc…) Hard to catch everybody but they did a respectable job.
$Tera questions:
* Why is new case rate in China = none?
* Have all Chinese in China suddenly and simultaneously become immune? How?
* Are Chinese statistics propaganda? Would the dictators risk their necks on a huge lie?
According to this… china just stopped testing. Nothing to see here.
Interesting report on the quarantine process in China.
I find the South Korean continuing dribble of cases more plausible:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_coronavirus_pandemic_in_South_Korea
I’ve been following this closely since I saw the Chinese build hospitals overnight. That scared me as I’ve spent a fair amount of time in China and have an inkling of what the government is capable of. I hope we all get past this as quickly as possible. Part of what gave me hope is how well Taiwan and Hong Kong dealt with this. The rest of the world really blew it. China went on full draconian lock down with 440 cases, the US just started to recommend social distancing at 4500. This will play itself out in the weeks to come.
On the financial front, are you still a 100% stock guy all in all the time? These are the times the test all of our conviction for sure.
Alas, I’ve never achieved the 100% stock portfolio. We were still about 90/10 pre-crash so somewhat higher bond allocation now
Wow, congrats on baby #2! How exciting :)
Thanks for the post, and a special thanks to GCCJr for the lovely drawing. I’m in healthcare in a hard-hit area of the US, and looking at that drawing gives me a boost of perspective and calm. In fact the drawing is now gracing my phone’s lock screen. You’d think I’d want to think about coronavirus less, but his drawing is my way of fighting back–there’s beauty in everything. Stay well!
The shutdown and slowdown of many businesses not only in the US, but globally, will affect the stock market for a long time, possibly for years. You mentioned you have some sort of rule to have only 3 months worth of expenses in your money market account and the rest in stocks and bonds. How are you going to handle your finances after your 3 months supply is gone?
Yeah, good question.
It’s not really a rule, per se, but more or less what I held over the past many years since our income was exceeding expenses.
For 2020, knowing we had childbirth expenses coming up we were holding more cash. This is similar to what we did with kid #1 that I highlighted in Cash Flow Management in Early Retirement.
I also rebalanced the portfolio last year (and every year), selling what was up (stock) and buying what was down or flat (bonds.) I’ve recently sold some of those bonds to build our cash cushion even further to ride out the next few years. I’ll expand on that in a coming post because I think a lot of people have the same question.
Wow! Thank you very much for the insight from the “front line”.
I live in Eastern Washington and it is interesting how our state has been a hot spot. It felt like the US was stepping up like they needed to with the shut downs but obviously we have a lot to learn……so thank you for the path. Stay safe and glad that baby #2 is coming later in the year! xoxox
I’m in voluntary lockdown. Only leaving for groceries and with masks always. Escaped Thailand to Mexico, but barely. The flights I took are now unavailable. Mexico is…. super chill about this. Few masks, just some people stocking up on groceries.
I’m getting really scared of the possible economic crash. That huge fear told me to go all in on stocks, so here I am. 99.5% stocks with a little cash as of Friday.
My family also has a restaurant in an area undergoing mandatory stay at home orders. This makes me worry for them as the lockdown will be hard on the business and whether they can make it through.
How long do you think this will last?
>How long do you think this will last?
At least 3-6 months. Because the US was slow to respond, the virus was able to spread rampant. The lockdowns are necessary due to the incompetence – and yet we still see people going to the beach.
Once there is widespread testing in place, people can start to return towards normalcy as we can isolate only those with the virus. This continues until there is a vaccine. That is minimum 12-18 months away.
It’s so impressive how Taiwan was able to contain COVID-19 from the beginning, after what they learned from SARS. I read an article from Vox that was published on 3/10 titled “Taiwan has millions of visitors from China and only 45 coronavirus cases.”
My parents are between 60 and 70 years old live in Taiwan. I live in LA. When news of COVID-19 first broke out in China, I was worried about their health. But now they’re the ones worrying about my health because the US government has been so late in testing and trying to contain the virus, and the cases and deaths have been rising exponentially.
Just really shows how early containment and vigilance can make a huge difference in the outcome of the pandemic.
Hey Jeremy – first-time reader after meandering here from JL’s blog review on Betterment and reading your very valid counterpoints. Also a Taiwan APRC holder having lived in Kaohsiung from ’08-18 and have massive love for the little renegade province that could; especially in the context of how the world is handling the pandemic!
Moved back to the US to reconnect with family, but am eager to return to the expat lifestyle ASAP when things cool off. Trying to live in the US for the past 2 years has been like living on the set of a neverending episode of the Twilight Zone.
That said, I’ve been busy saving up and researching investment options while I’ve been biding my time stateside. I’m definitely way behind the curve, but am trying to catch up and it seems there’s no better time to do so than in the current bear market.
As a DIY guy myself, I’d like to know what you recommend for the best self-administered brokerage options. I’m leaning towards Vanguard and/or Fidelity since they are pretty upfront about rates/fees, and it doesn’t seem like the new apps on the block really offer that much of a benefit beyond their shiny exteriors and cool tools, at least for long-term moves.
Any advice would be appreciated – even if it comes from an old blog post because I’m sure this is a redundant question.
Thank you sir!
We all made fun of China in the beginning for their delay in action, but looking back now, at the whole country or just Wuhan, they managed to control their numbers far better than many other countries who had more time to prepare. When the time called for it the society got their sh*t together swiftly with determination. The measures were disruptive but the results were quick and the outlook is bright.
Ok with the Bush quote. The question is, did you get it from J.Cole or do you actually remember Bush saying it?
Not sure who J Cole is…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KjmjqlOPd6A