Taiwan is the 15th densest country on Earth. When it comes to disease prevention, the island does not mess around. People here, like everywhere, are on alert against H1N1. About a fifth of the people on the streets and in the subway wear surgical masks to guard against germs, sometimes adorned with fashionable prints or adorable felt animals.
There’s alcohol dispensers everywhere, crowded spaces like office buildings or malls, for people to sanitize their hands. And public service advertisements plastered across Taipei warn people with fevers to stay home.
But it goes further than that. Say you enter a high-rise office building. Or a modern dance performance in an auditorium. Or a second grade classroom. Or a university library. More likely than not, the teacher or usher or security guard will grab a little handheld electrical device and, startlingly, hold it a millimeter from your forehead. This happened to me in all of the above locations.
At first I thought my retina was being scanned, “Minority Report”-style, or that a microchip was being implanted into my brain. I eventually realized the gadgets were digital thermometers. That’s what’s going on in the Central News Agency photo above, Taiwan school kids’ temperatures being scanned on the first day of class in August.
Temperature more than 38 degrees Celsisus? Time to pack up your things and head home.
I told you they don’t mess around.
