fcgamer

Regarding potatoes, hash browns were sadly the ones that has been removed from McDonald's here, for a few months.

I'm already on the vaccine train, you're preaching to the choir with that. My point is that from all articles I have read and seen, due to omnicron being more infectious, it's less severe. We also have more information about the virus at this point in time, a large portion of people aren't ending up on ventilators and dying. Furthermore, those who want to be vaxxed at this point mostly are. The article Link posted highlights a real problem, but the problem is that hospital staff and doctors are quitting en masse, I imagine if we looked at other fields such as pilots, and possibly teachers, we'd also see large amounts of folks leaving the industry.

Although I'm sure the hospitals are short-staffed and overwhelmed, I'd like to see some articles showing the severity of the recent disease, the amount of people that end up hospitalized to begin with, etc. Everything that I have seen has shown that hospitalizations are much shorter than a few years back, symptoms are much, much less severe, people aren't as likely to end up on ventilators, etc. Enough with the fear stories, I want to see facts.

If we weren't letting in the CNY crowd, we wouldn't have had the current outbreak. The current outbreak is then going to get worse over the CNY, we both already see that happening. In the end those that essentially caused that outbreak will go back home to their own countries, leaving ours in lockdown and many people in ruins. And for what? In how many places was Christmas cancelled, or other holidays? We shouldn't be in lockdown now, as we shouldn't have ever gotten to this point to begin with. The same people and industries are going to take the hit yet again, while the others aren't (and therefore couldn't care less). One of my main issues is that of accountability and responsibility. Maybe it's better in Changhua, but in Taichung, no one social distances, hardly anyone aside from Mr Yorkshire and I use the QR tracking, a large portion of the old people and a smaller portion of young people aren't masking up, etc. It's the same in Taipei, Taoyuan, from what I've seen. Unless we resort to welding people into homes and beating them with batons, a large portion just aren't willing to follow the rules anymore. For the younger ones, they're just thinking of themselves, likely not to die. For the older ones, it starts becoming weird, of course I don't want people to die, but if they aren't following protocol and I end up losing more salary and sanity for the sake of protecting folks who don't even want to protect themselves, then I find there to be something extremely wrong with this. And that's why I personally feel we just need to accept to live with it, as the vast majority of people here are double vaxxed, they're rolling out the booster currently, and since older people were in the first tier to get vaxxed, if they aren't, they didn't/don't want it, which ties back in with the personal accountability thing. Oh well, I've said my piece, hopefully things in reality are better than what we both are speculating.

The problem is sacrifices are only being made if / when they suit. CNY is the classic example, everyone knew that this would happen...

Disagree 100% on this, and I'm honestly not surprised at all by our differing of perspectives here, so please don't take anything I will say later in this post personal. But my point still stands that our situation is quite different than what anyone in Europe or North America is / has experienced, hence the reason I tagged you. And I appreciate your viewpoints as well, despite differing from mine, as the reality generally lies somewhere in the middle. Taiwan did a great job handling the pandemic initially, though since the whole pilot / Lion's Club fiasco last summer, they've done a terrible job going about things. Here is what I saw back then, up until now: 1. In Taichung, a large portion of people are not socially distancing. 2. In Taichung, every other person is not doing the required QR Code registration. 3. The virus and lockdowns last summer were literally caused by grandpas visiting prostitutes and then covering things up to try to hide embarassment from the community, paired with greedy corporations trying to run discount hotel stays into a high-risk area. 4. Chinese New Year is soon upon us, and once again, lo-and-behold, 1 in 7 (?) returning Taiwanese is testing positive for the virus. Some of those cases brought about the recent commbsuunity cases. 5. Those same returning Taiwanese hold two or three passports, and have lived and worked abroad for years, maybe even decades. So they can "return home" and bring the virus here, yet our parents can't even visit us, despite us actually residing and working here. 6. It's odd how the community outbreak cases closed us down last summer, despite being few and all contained in the north, yet now with Chinese New Year upon us, similar numbers of cases (again mostly in the north) and yet things are "safe enough" to go about business as usual. Quite convenient. 7. It's odd that the SEA workers that stepped out of their quarantine for a minute in search of food got slapped with $$$$ fine, yet the Taiwanese celebrities, the health guy Chen (seen smoking a cig with mask lowered during level 3), etc didn't receive such hefty fines. 8. When people did get vouchers to help assist them due to the virus, there were stipulations in place excluding those that needed it most. SEA folks once again were essentially herded up in cages, whereas their bosses didn't have such restrictions. Folks working in banks and businesses didn't get shut down, yet they got government assistance. Many foreign school teachers, restaurant owners, SEA workers, they were all forced to enter quarantine - and oddly enough, got no vouchers, no government assistance. A. And that's why the whole thing is bullshit. Omnicron is here, thanks to the doings of government policies catering towards the selfish desires of locals (I'd love to have my parents come visit me ...). In the end, zero case policy will just mean more lockdowns. Again, it won't hurt most industries, but school teachers will be hurt, as will hotel owners, restaurant owners, etc. Why would those not involved in such industries give a crap? B. The recent Tasty Case, it's quite odd that the recent headlines all pin the blame emphasizing the SEA workers spreading the disease, yet the whole thing goes back to the airport case's daughter going to work and spreading it. But who is honestly hurt the most through it all? C. So no, Taiwan government recently hasn't been doing a good job with the whole situation. That's why so many people are leaving the country. Maybe it's nothing to you to lose a few months' more work in quarantine, but I honestly don't want to lose the pay, nor spend the time stuck without human contact for month on end, just because a few old folks refuse to wear their masks, and a few "fake" Taiwanese come home to celebrate a holiday. I mean, Christmas has been cancelled so many times, why not CNY? Total shit for brains short-sighted attitudes as always. If you vax it's likely we aren't going to see this en-masse death scare party that some outlets keep presenting, and if it is likely, why are we letting folks into the country to risk overflowing our hospitals, anyways?

I agree with @darkchylde28 on basically all of his points. Ice been wearing masks since the whole thing began, wear them at work, wear them outside, wear them at church or in shops or wherever I go. Regarding the cloth masks: I think Corey probably doesn't know what I'm referring to, I'll take a picture if I can remember, if I see one in a shop. While those masks are better than nothing (same with any sort of covering), there's a point where it's like tying a napkin onto the end of your penis and using it as birth control. If it's all you have, it might be better than nothing, but it wouldn't be very efficient at all. That was my point, and I think we're at the stage where we should be wearing the sort of masks that have been proven to work. Regarding opening up, the end of the pandemic, and everything else: I'm in a very different situation than everyone else, only @OptOut is in a similar situation. With a large portion of the people double vaxxed, and many boosted (not so many here in Taiwan but we're working on it), it's time people start learning to live with the virus. Taiwan is still striving for a "zero cases" policy, but one has to ask him or herself if this is the wise or even reasonable approach to take, locking down parts of a country, disrupting lives and jobs, especially when most of the recent cases haven't been particularly serious. If you own a restaurant or work in a school, you're the first to take the hit with each lockdown, not receiving much government help either. These sorts of things need to be considered.

Okay if that's not what we've been discussing the last few posts, what were we discussing? Should I quote you yet again, just to show how silly you are?

The discussion here is about cloth masks not being efficient in protecting from covid 19.

As I said before, you need to improve your reading comprehension. He and I are talking about cloth masks, not all masks. Learn to read better or gtfo.

Surgical masks are fine, but not that washable reusable cloth shit.

Lol, of course I don't want anyone sneezing into my face, with or without. Cloth masks are not particularly effective against any of the covid strains, they're more seen as something to keep bugs out of your mouth while driving scooters. There's a reason those masks aren't even allowed to be worn when a mask is required over here.

You should read again what he said about masks, and that's true. The cloth masks don't protect against much of anything other than perhaps air pollution. I knew that way before the pandemic even came into any of our minds, perhaps you should do some research sunshine boy.

Lol, Fauci was kowtowing to the CCP, period. When a person does that, nothing's ever going to restore their credibility, imo.

Yeah Trophy is awesome. I even recommended it to my brother, I feel it's that good.

From what I've seen going on locally, it's out, the pandemic is basically over. Local governments don't want to say this though, as midterms are coming up and they don't want to be responsible for someone's grandma dying; similarly though, Chinese New Year is basically here so they are trying to keep things open. Have your cake and eat it too. This demonstrates to me that at this point the rules and restrictions have little to do with safety and the best interests of the population. The genie is out of the bottle, it's over, though the media is trying their hardest to say otherwise.

Weren't some adjustments made in the reissue to address this?

Where had the Dew Doritos?

Doritos, ahhh yes, so delicious

So maybe we should change the topic to Regular Cheese steak vs meatball marinara

If it ain't from Philly, it ain't a Philly cheese steak

Gonna go meatball. Finally after about 12 years, an American expat decided to start selling meatball subs at the pizza shop fifteen minutes from me. I just wish they were larger in size, lol. I actually started doing (and perfected) the meatball sub due to craving one and being unable to find one here, aside from Shitway. About Philly Cheesesteaks, I'm from PA, tried the originals, yeah they're good but nothing beats meatballs. Well actually chicken parmigian sub does, but that's a whole other story.

Yeah it is, no idea why, it's quite simple to make an amazing marinara sauce...

No idea, but I'm curious about this too.

Probably, not to get petty about it. Hated watching you lead this game to destruction