Coronavirus: Yes, Culture Matters
By: Steven Choi
Tags: Taiwan, Culture, Coronavirus, Masks

Living in Taiwan since mid-January has made me suspect that cultural factors may be as significant in this Coronavirus fight as policy factors are.

When I first arrived in Taiwan mid-January there were 0 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Taiwan, and yet health checks had been set up at the airport and people were already wearing masks in public. Honestly, I thought the level of caution that the Taiwanese were displaying against Coronavirus was an extreme overreaction. Soon, restaurants began checking temperatures before allowing guests to be seated, and almost every public building had hand sanitizer stations at every entrance. Ridiculous, I thought, when my own chance of getting infected was next to nothing.

But I think the data has shown that my way of thinking was wrong and their way of thinking was right. The rate of growth in Western countries continues to grow almost perfectly exponentially (meaning that efforts to contain the virus have yet to make an impact), while many Asian countries with much closer proximity to China have been much more successful at containment, or mitigation when initial containment efforts failed.

My observation is that this is due to both public health policy choices, but also cultural mindsets within the populations. I scoffed initially at the Taiwanese individuals who were taking such precautions against the virus, judging them for being overly fearful and paranoid. Meanwhile, many Western expats and tourists in my new home in Vietnam have been complaining incessantly on Facebook about measures Vietnamese officials are taking to prevent a Coronavirus outbreak in Da Nang, including the enforcement of public mask-wearing.

Two months ago, the enlightened American in me bristled at the idea of wearing a mask in public because I had read that the masks were ineffective at preventing me from getting infected, so I ignored the repeated requests of my wife’s family. But I have come to see that it’s not just fear of individual harm that drives mask-wearing and other kinds of caution, but a concern for the collective well-being of society that motivates these actions. This is something that my Western mindset was slow to recognize. I always saw mask-wearing in Asia as an expression of fear of individual infection. I now see it as a way of protecting those around me, especially the vulnerable. This is especially significant because Coronavirus is capable of asymptomatic transmission and transmission from individuals who don’t know they have the virus.

Wearing a mask doesn’t just protect me from others, it protects others from me.

This thing spreads so quickly that even a delay of 3–4 days can be the difference between 1000 cases and 10,000 cases, which is why I’m glad the governor of my home state of California issued a statewide stay-at-home mandate, even though the numbers aren’t at Italy levels yet. My time in Asia has convinced me that preventative action is the far better course of action, even if it feels unnecessary or paranoid at the time. This isn’t an individual health crisis, it’s a public health crisis. Let’s each do our part.