Elder Tustin Neilson: COVID-19 in Taiwan

Hey all,

Since the Corona Virus is pretty much the only thing anyone talks about now a-days I figured I would give a wholesale update on how Taiwan is dealing with it and how it has affected missionary work here.

As I'm sure a lot of you know, most missions in the world are being affected by the virus outbreak either in the form of missionaries begin isolated, or being sent to work in their home nations. However, Taiwan is one of the safest nations in the world right now and so in most ways our missionary work goes on as normal.

Taiwan was hit really heavily by a smaller outbreak of a different virus called SARS back a few years ago and since then the government and the people have learned how to respond to this kind of threat.

Months ago, when the virus was still only in China, Taiwan was already creating travel restrictions from the infected areas and the people acted quickly by buying and wearing masks almost immediately. This helped stop any spreading of the virus in the early days.

Another cultural note that helped keep Taiwan safe is how people deal with illness. In Taiwan if you get sick, you go straight to the hospital or some sort of clinic. There is very little self medication or self diagnosis going on. So the healthcare system in Taiwan is used to dealing with a lot of people coming for help, and it also has access to a lot of information on the current state of the nations health. It is easy for Taiwan to learn of new cases of the disease because when people get sick they go to the doctor and get professional help and are tested for the virus. So at least from my understanding, Taiwan probably has some of the most accurate understanding of how many people are sick and how to prevent further spread.

So long story short, because the people have done such a good job of controlling the virus in Taiwan, life goes on as normal. Most if not all businesses are running as normally, (although they might leave all the doors and windows open to help get more air flow or something like that) and missionary work goes on more or less as normal.

We still contact people on the street and still try to meet with people as much as we can. We do a lot more video call lessons and stuff like that but no major adjustments have been made in the way we do things.

We are trying to protect ourselves as much as we can, we wear masks in busy places and when we meet with members, we don't shake hands anymore, and we wash our hands a lot. It's a fun time here in Taiwan trying to do as much as we can to help people while also being cautious and trying to protect ourselves and others.

It's been a fun week of doing just that in my tripanionship. It's been a fun time. This week it should be changing and I'll work with another elder as my normal companion waits in Isolation for 14 days with some other missionaries who are also in isolation. ( any missionaries now entering Taiwan from other places have to isolate) So I have at least 2 weeks before my life returns to complete normalcy. But I love to get all the weird assignments because it sure is more fun.

Hope you all stay safe,

Elder Neilson