In this Women Investing Network podcast episode, host Juanita Ingram, an expatriate living in Taiwan and host of the Mommy Talk Live show, discusses Taiwan’s early and effective response to the COVID‑19 pandemic and contrasts it with the United States’ approach. She details the Taiwanese government’s rapid actions—temperature checks, school closures, mask rationing, caps on essential goods, transparent communication via text alerts, and the cultural emphasis on collective responsibility—that kept case numbers low (322 cases, five deaths at the time). Juanita shares her personal quarantine experience, including the psychological challenges of mask‑wearing with asthma, the eerie quiet of Taipei, and the importance of self‑care. She introduces her 14‑day workbook "Peace Over Panic," which offers daily self‑care activities, scripture reflections, and kid‑friendly tasks, aiming to help families maintain mental health during lockdown. Proceeds from the book support Dress for Success charities in London and Chattanooga. Throughout, Juanita emphasizes global citizenship, the need for collective action, and the lessons learned from living across three continents.
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It's my pleasure to welcome Juanita Ingram. We are going to talk about coronavirus quarantine survival. She's based in Taiwan. She's the host of where in the World Is Juanita Ingram? On the Mommy Talk Live Network. Juanita, welcome. How are you?
I'm doing well. Thank you for having me.
It's good to have you on. So we have a large swath of the entire population of planet Earth under some kind of quarantine order. Stay at home at least. Strong suggestion, if not an actual law or mandate. What's going on in Taiwan? I mean, you're very close to China. Some call this the China virus or the Wuhan virus. Right. But there are big differences in terms of the way Taiwan and China have responded to this whole thing, right?
Absolutely. And we are in Taiwan, 84 miles outside of China, yet our numbers are relatively low. As of Today, we have 322 cases, only five deaths. And that's as of today. And I believe around 200 plus of those cases are imported, meaning just a couple of weeks ago we were only at 45 cases and it only went up because the majority of those cases are people that have come here from the U.S. uK or Europe. So they aren't local, they're imported. And the difference in the way that we responded as opposed to the rest of the world, really, we handled this or started to handle this back at the end of January. So everything that all of my friends and family are experiencing over in the US right now, we were there almost 30 days ago.
And of course, just to be clear, when you say we, you mean the Taiwanese government, right?
The country of Taiwan. The Taiwanese government and the residents of Taiwan. So I live here and we went through, you know, my kids school shut for 30 days. We, I didn't leave my house. We were under sort of that strict suggestion of self quarantine, social distancing. And there's just a big cultural difference here as opposed to what I'm seeing in the US with family, again, family and friends. I'm originally from Tennessee, so I, you know, I've seen a lot of responses and from my own classmates, from people.
That I know, people in Tennessee that are maybe on social media or in touch with you one way or another, right?
Yes, Absolutely. And I lived In London for almost five years before that. And so I have a lens. I was actually just in London March 2nd through the 10th. So I have a lens of three continents.
Right, right. Yeah, you have a really interesting perspective. That's fantastic. I've just got to ask you, how in the heck did you end up in Taiwan? That's quite a stretch from Tennessee.
It is, it is. Like I said, we lived for almost five years in London before this. I'm an attorn and my husband is the president of the Taiwanese affiliate here for one of the pharmaceutical companies. He works for a pharmaceutical company. So his job is what brought us to London and now it brought us to Taiwan. And so we are expats and we are corporate expats. So we live sort of internationally because of his job. Although he will say because of the things that I usually end up doing while I'm in various countries and maybe it's my career and he's just the, the vehicle that gets us there. But. But it's work, work related.
Yeah, yeah, good stuff, good stuff. So tell us more. I kind of got you off topic there with my question, but tell us more.
Yeah, no, I just, I think, you know, back in January, it was the end of Chinese New Year and my kids were out of School. Around January 25, towards the end of the year, we were celebrating Chinese New Year. We were actually in Malaysia on vacation and we heard whispers of what they call the Wuhan virus at that time now, the coronavirus or COVID 19. And we'd heard whispers about it. I had ordered masks at that time just because we'd heard, well, there was this sort of SARS like virus that was coming out of that area. And by the time we got home, my kids schools were canceled. You know, everyone was under this high heavy suggested self quarantine. And I think so many people are getting caught up in like the semantics of whether it's a shutdown or a lockdown or quarantine. The bottom line is we all had to sit down and that was the most important thing. And I think from the lens of being in Asia and being in Taiwan, the culture here, the people here, very compliant. But then again, we had a lot of transparency from the Taiwanese government. I know everyone from CNN to MSNBC to Forbes has written about how Taiwan is sort of the blueprint for handling the coronavirus. And the response that the Taiwanese government gave, which I think obviously was brilliant. It kept a lot of people. Mind you, Taiwan is a country of 23 million in population. So it's about the size of Texas in population, in numbers, but in a very condensed area. So the fact that we only have 322 cases even today is amazing.
Okay, and tell us you're pleased with the response of your government there, but tell us more about what that means. What did they do? So they acted quickly, it sounds like. That's. That's one thing. Right.
Very quickly. And mind you, now, they had experience with sars, so this is, you know, they had a pandemic sort of center in place. They did a lot of temperature checks immediately. Schools were shut for almost a month. I think it was a little under a month because February is a short month. So then almost the entire month of February, toward the end of January, schools were shut. We had social distancing. There was no movement except for essential travel. So while grocery stores remained open, you couldn't enter without wearing a mask, without having your temperature checked. There were testings that were done and just a lot of communication with the public. They did things to keep from having panic buying. So there were caps that were put on essential things like hand sanitizer, toilet paper. You could only buy two at a time just to keep people from panic buying so that there would be enough for everyone. In the early days, in the first couple of weeks, they rationed and took all the masks in the country and rationed them out to those who had residency cards or citizens that were here. And everyone received two every seven days. So if you had a residency card or your passport or your health insurance card, you could get two masks every seven days for everyone in your household. And even now, they switched to sort of an online ordering service where the amount is about 16 cents per mask and so very affordable. They made sure that everyone had the essentials again to control the panic. But they're constantly. And communication about where the numbers are, what the nature of the virus is. I received almost like Amber alerts on my cell phone because I have a Taiwanese number and everyone that has that. We would receive these text messages where, you know, certain areas were strictly quarantined because there was a case of someone who had been there or who had received a positive test result. And these were the places that they visited. I mean, it was very transparent so that you were equipped to make the right decisions. I think sometimes what I'm seeing in the US With a lot, with my family and with friends, not just in Tennessee, but everywhere, because I lived in Indiana for almost 17 years before we moved to London and now Taiwan. I think everyone. It took a while for people to take it seriously. It took a while for people to believe that social distancing was even necessary, that it was something that was going to work. And I think there's just a lot of unknown about, okay, well, two weeks or 30 days from now, what is that going to look like? And I think Taiwan is a perfect example of where that's done and it is successful, Mind you, our numbers are going to continue to peak and continue to rise as the world continues to deal with it. So we had a hold on everything until it hit the US and hit Europe and hit the UK and it was sort of not under control. So for a while, we only had 45, 47 cases. And then we saw the import of Hundreds, almost. Almost 200 new cases, maybe a little bit more than that, all imported. And so I think for me, I wanted people to know the importance of recognizing that whether you live in the US Whether you've never moved, whether you live in your hometown, we're all global citizens. And everything that we do and choose to do impacts everyone all over the world.
One of the really, I don't mean for this to sound wrong, but one of the neat things that's come out of this, you know, because it's a virus, it affects everybody, and the only way we can stop it is to work together. You know, maybe this is a lesson from our creator that we got to figure out how to work together as a global community. And, you know, this. This might be a hard lesson for us to learn. Right. But it's. It's really, you know, it's just ingrained in. In the way this kind of thing works, that that's what we have to do, and there's no other way.
Absolutely. I totally agree. And I think that is, like you said, it's a weird takeaway, but if there is a positive to it.
There are many positives, but. Yeah.
Yes. Yeah. But if there are positives to take away, it is the idea that people can now see that, you know, we have to stray away from the individual mindset to the collective whole. And I think that is something from a cultural perspective that is so different, maybe a little easier and more inherent in Asian cultures as opposed to other cultures. But I do think that it's something that if we're going to survive it and get. And get past it. You know, I was talking to one of my friends that I went to school with, and they were saying, oh, well, you know, I just don't want to stay inside. I've got things to do. I wanted to go to this and I had plans for spring break and.
There was, guess what? That's not just you. You're affecting. If it were just you, you know, listen, if, if nobody's paying for your health care and, you know, and you want to go on a motorcycle with no helmet and hurt or kill yourself, maybe that should be your choice. But when other people have to suffer consequences of your actions, then it's not your choice anymore.
Absolutely. And so when I came out of that sort of 30 days, then I honestly, we were in such a great place. You know, we had no travel bans, it hadn't hit the wave of the uk but as soon as it did, because of choices that people were making and the lack of sort of taking it serious, my children's school went on a second bout. Like right now they're out of school again, schools here are shut. We had to do sort of a second wave of trying to make sure that we contain it because again, we live in a very transient community. People are coming and going from all over the world. And the choices that you make individually, you're right, it's not about you anymore. And I think it was just very hard for people to believe that this was as serious as it is. Even though if you just pick your head up and look at what's going on all over the world or in other places in the world. You know, I was posting on, on Facebook about it and it was almost as though people were calling me a liar, that it wasn't happening because it wasn't in their backyard, it wasn't at their door yet.
Yeah, well, this kind of thing has exponential potential. So it's, it's absolutely. It's a lot different than, than other issues like the flu, because it's more contagious. And not only more contagious, it's asymptomatic, which means it's stealthy. And even if people do the right thing in self quarantine, they don't know that's the problem. It's like a stealth fighter jet. You don't know it's coming.
Okay, yes, it's a long incubation period and you can be fine for days and still test positive. I have two friends right now, husband and wife duo in Atlanta, who are doctors, ER doctors, and they both tested positive. The husband is very sick. The wife has zero symptoms and only tested because he tested positive. Mind you, they're on the front lines. It was through, you know, patient exposure and, you know, it's one of those Things where it is affecting everyone so differently. She has zero symptoms, doubt if she would have ever even gotten tested but for the fact that her husband had symptoms. So it is very different, very unique in that regard.
Okay, all right. What else do you want people to know?
Well, I want people to know that self quarantine, self distancing, all of these things are to be taken very seriously. I know it's a very hard thing to do. I know it's very challenging. The first time I put a mask on because it's not in the natural culture of things in the US but the first time I wore a mask and had to go outside, I had a small panic attack because I have asthma and it made me feel like I couldn't breathe. I live in downtown Taiwan, in Taipei. And it was so still, I mean, you couldn't even hear it. There were no cars in the street. It just seemed like something out of a movie set. And it was fear inducing. And so I wrote a book recently called Panic over or Peace Over Panic and How to Find Peace in the Midst of Chaos, in the Midst of Panic. Because I've been through that first 30 days and I know I was reading all of these posts online and I understood and I understood what people felt like and I knew that feeling, but also knew the peace that could come from getting on the other side. There were a lot of scriptures that I read that I used that helped bring me to a place of peace. I give a lot of suggestions in there about activities that you can do for self care, for making sure that you still feel sane while self quarantined, and then a lot of activities. So it's a 14 day workbook and each day you get an activity for yourself for self care. You get a scripture to help you sort of push away the fear. And then you get an activity to do with the kids. Because I am a mom. I have two children. My son's in the fifth grade, my daughter's in the seventh grade. And you know, when kids are out of school, your routine is sort of thrown up in the air. And sometimes it's very hard to know what can you do with kids on quarantine. So I wanted to give those type of tips also hope and inspiration to people to know that it does work. It is going to take time. Unfortunately, every country will be affected differently because every response in every country is different. But given time, the curve does flatten.
Okay, good. Good to know. Where can they get your book?
Sure. It is available for download at www.iamwanitaingram.com and the donation for the book is actually going to help Dress for Success Greater London and Dress for Success Chattanooga, which are charities that help unempl women get back into the workplace. We give them interview clothing and interview attire and it's all for free. So the donation is a win win. The donation that they give for the book goes to help underprivileged women who will need our services undoubtedly when we all come out on the other side of this.
Okay, Juanita, thank you so much for joining us.
Thank you for having. Me. Thank you so much for listening to the Women Investing Network. Be sure to subscribe, rate and review the show on itunes or the platform of your choice. You can find the show notes and resources for today's episode@womeninvestingnetwork.com remember that guest opinions are their own and information is of general nature, so be sure to consult appropriate tax, legal or other professionals for specific advice.
