Culture and Inertia Determine the Success or Failure of the Fight Against the Pandemic for the Countries

 Culture and Inertia Determine the Success or Failure of the Fight Against the Pandemic for the Countries

United Daily News Editorial (Taipei, Taiwan)

March 10, 2020

 Translation of an Excerpt

Italy has announced the shut-down of Milan and Venice in northern Italy, impacting 16 million people. On the eve of the closure, because the news leaked, hordes of residents fled overnight. Will the people who have fled from northern Italy bring the epidemic to more countries?

The Italians are passionate, kissing and embracing each other when meeting, which has obviously become a shortcut for spreading the virus. The same is true in Iran; Muslims hug each other, kissing each other on the cheek when meeting, and even have the habit of kissing the sacred tomb of Mohammad in Mecca. All this has completely disobeyed the principle of countering the new coronavirus pneumonia.

Taiwan has been successful in its Stage 1 of epidemic control, but if we continue to place emphasis on "containment", it probably will not be sufficient to cope with the situation. Hong Kong since January has adopted "distance teaching" in a comprehensive manner; in many areas on the Mainland, they do the same. Looking back at Taiwan, we have stayed in the stage of face-to-face teaching. Should the epidemic situation escalate, whether we could be well-prepared for distance education, it would depend on whether the government could jump out from its own inertia.

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