As the National Express coach headed down the M25 on a near freezing English morning, the rising sun cast its golden rays upon thousands of silhouetted, leafless wiry branches of seemingly dead trees, scratching at the sky across vast open fields, revealing dull, damp, green grass as far as the eye could see. A scene quite haunting in its quiet stillness. It was a beautifully bleak sight to my Saint Lucian eyes, especially when juxtaposed against our own verdant mountainsides, hills and valleys. Our greenery, as opposed to the English variety, is unapologetically loud. As I drew nearer my Fair Helen home, I could not help but think about how this fascinating contrast also reminded me of the week I’d just spent in faraway Formosa.
Formosa is Portuguese for ‘beautiful’ and was the name given the island of Taiwan circa 1542 by Portuguese sailors who had sailed past. This was explained in great detail at the Presidential Palace last Thursday morning, to me and the rest of the small media delegation brought from all over the world to cover the Pacific island’s annual Lantern Festival. Nine hours earlier, at midnight, I had just arrived at the Palais de Chine where we would be sleeping for most of our stay in Taiwan. The reception from hotel staff and MOFA (Taiwan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs) employees was extremely warm, despite that all were masked. It was the first thing I observed in Taiwan. Practically everyone wore a mask, from the travellers at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport to our hotel personnel.
I entered the lobby at the end of a 40-minute drive from the airport. My hands were immediately sprayed with a solution of disinfectant, and my temperature measured by hotel staff using an infrared laser thermometer—a device which can only be described as a thermometer gun. My first temperature reading was 35.7 degrees. A thumbs-up from staff assured me I was okay. The genius of this device is that it can measure temperature when a small distance away from the subject, without ever having to touch the skin, limiting unnecessary contact.
The next day, following our visit to the Presidential Palace, we were back on the bus when Vincent, our ever-present guide from MOFA, explained that the wearing of masks and the use of hand sanitizer are not government-imposed. I was surprised to learn this. In fact, he informed us, several privately owned businesses put those measures in place for their patrons and customers. At the Hotel de Chine, for instance, we were required to have our hands sprayed and our temperatures checked, not just at the start of each day, but every time we re-entered the hotel after leaving. Whether it was once or four times for that day, we had our temperatures taken and our hands sanitized. We were encouraged to don masks but it was not mandatory.
Nevertheless, I don’t recall seeing a single local, whether outdoors or in transit, in Taipei or Taichung, old or young, pedestrian or scooter rider, without a mask. Talk about personal responsibility and accountability. It made quite the impression on my Saint Lucian psyche. As for Taiwan’s government, it has taken measures similar to many in the international community, as this from the MOFA website testifies: “Starting from 0:00 am of February 10, 2020, travelers who transit through China, Hong Kong and Macau and are granted entry into Taiwan, will be required to be under home quarantine for 14 days. Pursuant to the request proposed by the Ministry of Health and Welfare, for disease prevention, the Ministry of Transportation and Communications will impose a temporary ban on cross-strait passenger flights between Taiwan and certain airports in China starting 0:00 am of February 10 to 11:59 pm of April 29.”
These measures are in fact quite reminiscent of our own Saint Lucia government’s precautionary policies. Earlier this month, the Health Ministry announced it was “taking measures to restrict the possible entry of coronavirus into Saint Lucia. In that regard, the Government of Saint Lucia will not allow any non-national with a travel history within the last 14 days from Mainland China, (whether in transit or originating), to enter any local port as of 12 a.m. Tuesday, 4 February 2020. Any national returning to Saint Lucia with similar travel history will be quarantined for 14 days.”
It is undeniable that over the last two months our government, particularly its Health Department, led by Dr. Sharon Belmar-George, has played its part in the dissemination of information pertaining to the virus, and by extension the protection of the wider public in these frightful times. Not only with the imposition of the above referenced travel ban, but also in its transparency with the public—albeit against serious competition from the insane disseminators of on-the-second fake news. The department has in several press releases, in print, over the radio and on TV, recommended several public safety practices including regular hand-washing with soap and water or alcohol-based hand sanitizer. Health officials have also recommended we seek medical attention and share our travel history with our healthcare providers if we have symptoms suggestive of respiratory illness either during or after travel.
Further, health officials also took the decision not to grant clearance to a cruise ship scheduled to berth in Saint Lucia on the first of this month “given the unusually high number of sick passengers on board”. More recently, the health department informed the public that on February 11, 2020 “a non-national who arrived in Saint Lucia via a private yacht from a neighboring territory was placed on medical quarantine at a health facility as he had visited a health care institution with respiratory symptoms and had a recent travel history to main-land China”.
The press release continued: “A sample was taken from the patient and was sent to the Caribbean Public Health Agency CARPHA for testing. On February 12, 2020, the Department of Health & Wellness received the test results of the non-national quarantined and confirms that the patient has tested negative for the Novel Corona Virus.” Evidently, the information never reached the tuned-off eyes and ears of the usual naysayers. Via Facebook and the ever-active local grapevine the persistent word was that the non-national had tested positive, and the “callous and vindictive” government was lying. And it all had to do with the Independence horse race.
Since I’ve been back, I’ve seen two individuals with masks; both are immigration officers; both took their own decision to protect themselves—with no prompting from their superiors. If public establishments were to require patrons to submit to spraying of the hands upon entering, I wonder what might be the public reaction. Chances are it would have everything to do with whether the operators were perceived as government supporters or as soldiers of the other side. If only dangerous viruses were as discriminating!
