Yes i'm sure the government in Taiwan is on high alert. There was a strange incident a few weeks ago where some Chinese gangster type figures in speed boats rammed a Taiwan coast guard patrol - i did wonder if that was meant to be a trigger type action such as you mentioned. How can a humble fisherman afford to do so much damage to his boat?

Meanwhile, countries around the world are rolling out surveillance apps like there's no tomorrow - also 'for our own good'. Before we go overboard with any more draconian big-brother measures let's get through a year and check the statistics to find out if the final death toll is any worse than a nasty flu season. No doubt some people will say 'Well it would have been much worse if we hadn't taken all these measures!' but there are going to be plenty of countries that for various reasons haven't done much so we can still get a pretty good baseline measure.

According to the WHO's own website, up to 650 000 people die annually from 'normal flu'. We're currently up to 178, 000 deaths from corona virus. The approximate average age of those deaths is 80 (as it is with normal flu) - all of whom had other serious illnesses.

If it turns out that it's no worse than a bad flu season, then who's going to accept accountability for wrecking the world economy and ramping up the big-brother state for no reason?