The Taiwanese government has announced that the recently implemented “3+4” quarantine policy will be relaxed further as cases and deaths in Taiwan skyrocket.

Taiwan again saw close to 70,000 local COVID cases today, this comes after nearly 2 years of daily cases sitting at or around 0. However, recent outbreaks, combined with a Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) that has seemingly given up on containing the virus and decide that it will force its citizens to “coexist with the virus” is leading Taiwan down a path that we have seen bring mostly death and destruction to other parts of the world (though it has arguably been better for the ruling elites).

In another decision that seems to show the CECC prioritizes profits over people’s health, they have once again decided to reduce quarantine periods. They have stipulated that people with 3 vaccines and a negative rapid test do not need to isolate at all.

It should be remembered that not long ago some of these same health officials were stating that rapid tests may not be the most accurate way to gage infections, which is why people who had symptoms were encouraged to get PCR tests.

As the vast majority of students have yet to receive their 3rd shot, this will mean, thankfully, that those crammed into packed classrooms will still have to isolate. However, those that come into contact with others at work or while out at a restaurant will not.

Another issue with this system is that if these individuals are allowed to simply rapid test at home, they could simply not test at all and say they did. There is also a serious issue with the availability of rapid tests currently due to, what seems to be, poor preparation by the CECC before they plunged Taiwan headfirst into a deadly pandemic.

I recently interviewed several people in southern Taiwan that reported they scoured their local city of Kaohsiung searching for rapid tests, to no avail. Eventually they resorted to driving all the way to Pingtung to get them in order for them to return to work, after an outbreak at their workplace.

This move to reduce quarantine times is ostensibly to push people to get vaccinated. However, being that even those in the CECC have admitted that breakthrough cases are incredibly common and we are still using vaccines that were designed for what some health experts are now calling “not the same disease,” it seems that this may not be the best strategy. This is exemplified by new, peer reviewed research, that shows Pfizer’s vaccine protections fade after just weeks of boosting.

It is just as likely, perhaps more so, that this is simply an attempt by the ruling elites to get the peasants back to work. This is exactly what happened in the US, and numerous other countries around the world when the ruling class dictated that the workers shall “live (and die) with the virus.” It appears to be an attempt to salvage the economy (which in Taiwan grew more than it had in a decade last year when the country was actually using methods we know to quell pandemics like quarantining) that is headed for a cliff due to ballooning infections.

Once again, we all saw what happened around the world when this virus is allowed to run rampant. People get sick, many die. This is not good if you are tying to keep people at work (not to mention if you’re trying to keep people healthy and alive the ostensible purpose of the CDC) and thus keep the economy chugging along. Sick people don’t go to work, and neither do dead people for that matter. People who are working for minimum wage (which is pitifully low in Taiwan), and those working in the most dangerous sectors during a full fledged outbreak (like nurses and teachers), often get fed up with dealing with the fallout of the government’s inability, or unwillingness, to provided for public health. Then they quit. This obviously hurts the economy.

At the end of the day it is simply frustrating to watch Taiwan do exactly what nearly every other country in the world did. Give up, allow its citizens to be infected with a deadly virus that increasing appears to have long term health consequences that could be far worse than we ever imagined, for essentially no reason. It appears that Taiwan is just another country willing to sacrificing the most vulnerable at the alter of capital and comfort for the elite.