Jason Hartman is joined by Coronavirus Quarantine Survivor, attorney, author, and actress, Juanita Ingram. They have a wide discussion that includes Taiwan’s reaction to COVID-19 a month before it hit the US. They explain what Taiwan did well and how the SARS pandemic helped prepare them for this problem. Juanita also gives perspective on how culture and its differences played in a role in how the pandemic was handled.
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Welcome to the holistic survival show with Jason Hartman. The economic storm brewing around the world is set to spill into all aspects of our lives. Are you prepared? Where are you going to turn for the critical life skills necessary to survive and prosper? The holistic survival show is your family’s insurance for a better life. Jason will teach you to think independently to understand threats and how to create the ultimate action plan. sudden change or worst case scenario. You’ll be ready. Welcome to holistic survival, your key resource for protecting the people, places and profits you care about in uncertain times. Ladies and gentlemen, your host, Jason Hartman
Jason Hartman 1:00
Welcome to the show. This is Jason Hartman, your host and every 10th episode, we do something kind of special kind of different. What we do is we go off topic so regardless of which show it is on the Hartman media network, whether it be one of the financial shows economics, real estate investing, a travel, longevity, all of the other topics that we have every 10th episode, we go off topic, and we explore something of general interest, something of general life success value. And so many of our listeners around the world in 164 countries have absolutely loved our 10th episode shows. So that’s what we’re going to do today. And let’s go ahead and get to our guest with a special 10th episode show. And of course, on the next episode, we’ll be back to our regular programming. Here we go. It’s my pleasure to welcome Juanita Ingram. We are going to talk about Corona virus 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?
Juanita Ingram 2:11
I’m doing well. Thank you for having
Jason Hartman 2:12
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. Hey, if not, if not actual law, or mandate, what’s going on in Taiwan? I mean, you’re very close to China. You know, some call this the China virus or the Wu Han virus, right. But there are big differences in terms of the way Taiwan and China have responded to this whole thing, right?
Juanita Ingram 2:44
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 Lead, 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 US, UK or Europe. So they aren’t local, they’re important. 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.
Jason Hartman 3:34
We were there almost 30 days ago. And of course, just to be clear, when you say we mean the Taiwanese government,
Juanita Ingram 3:40
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. 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 are 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 lance, I was actually just in London, March 2 through the 10th or so I have a lens of three continents.
Jason Hartman 4:35
Right, right. Yeah. You have a really interesting perspective. That’s fantastic. I just got to ask you. How in the heck did you end up in Taiwan? That’s quite a stretch from Tennessee.
Juanita Ingram 4:47
It is it is. Like I said, we lived for almost five years in London before this. I’m, I’m an attorney. And my husband is the president of the Taiwanese affiliate here for one of the pharmaceutical companies he works for pharmaceutical companies 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 while I’m in various countries, and maybe, maybe it’s my career, and he’s just the vehicle that gets us there.
Juanita Ingram 5:24
But but it’s work related.
Jason Hartman 5:25
Yeah. Yeah. Good stuff. Good stuff. So tell us more. I kind of got you off topic here with my question, but don’t tell us more. Yeah, no,
Juanita Ingram 5:33
I just I think, you know, back in January, it was the end of Chinese New Year, and my kids were out of schools around January 20 cents. 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 Wu Han virus at that time. Now the Coronavirus or COVID-19 and we’d heard whispers about it. I ordered mask of a 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, like his 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 shut down or 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, you’re very compliant. But then again, we had a lot of transparency from the Taiwanese government. I know everyone from CNN to Ms. NBC to Forbes has written about how Taiwan is sort of the blueprint for handling the corona virus and the response of the Taiwanese government gave, which I think obviously was brilliant, and kept a lot of people safe. 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 video condensed area.
Jason Hartman 7:01
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? Right? They acted quickly. It sounds like that’s, that’s one thing right?
Juanita Ingram 7:20
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 is separate central travel. So while grocery stores remain 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 do 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, and the first couple of weeks, they rationed and took all the mask in the country, and ration them out to those who had residency cards or citizens that were here, and everyone received to every seven days. So if you had a residency card, or your passport, or your health insurance card, you could get to mask everything 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 in 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 was strictly quarantine 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 and now Taiwan, I think everyone is it took a while for people to take 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 Juanita Ingram 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 us. 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 have 4547 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 never move whether you live in your own town, we’re all global citizens, and everything that we do and choose to do impacts everyone all over the world.
Jason Hartman 10:53
That’s 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.
Juanita Ingram 11:28
Absolutely, I totally agree. And I think that is, like you said, it’s a weird take away, but if there is a positive to it, there are many positives,
Jason Hartman 11:37
but yeah, yes,
Juanita Ingram 11:38
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 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 then
Jason Hartman 12:18
guess what, that’s not just you, you’re affecting if it were just us, 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.
Juanita Ingram 12:41
Absolutely. And so when I came out of that sort of 30 days, then honestly, we were in such a great place. You know, we had no travel bands. It hadn’t hit the wave of the UK or us, but as soon as it did, because of choices that people were making, and the the last have sort of taking a series, my children to 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 is your right is 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, it was it
Jason Hartman 13:47
has exponential potential. So it’s, it’s a lot different than, than other issues like the flu because it’s more contagious and not only more contagious. It’s a symptom. Medic, which means it’s stealthy. And even if people do the right thing and self quarantine, they don’t know. That’s That’s the problem. It’s like a, it’s like a stealth fighter jet. You don’t know it’s okay.
Juanita Ingram 14:12
Yes. Is it long incubation period and you know, you can be fine for four 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 there 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 data 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
Jason Hartman 14:55
right. What else do you want people to know?
Juanita Ingram 14:57
Well, I want people to know their 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. And the first time I put a mask on, because it’s not then 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, and Taipei, and it was so steel. I mean, you couldn’t even hear it. There were no cars on the street. It just seemed like something out of a movie said, and it was fear inducing. And so I wrote a book recently called panic over our peace over panic, and how to find peace in the midst of chaos in the midst of a 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 piece that could come from getting on the other side. There were a lot of scriptures that I read that I use 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 quarantine, and then a lot of activities. So is 14 is 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.
Jason Hartman 17:02
Okay Good Good. Good to know where can they get your book?
Juanita Ingram 17:06
Sure it is available for download at www dot i am Juanita ingram.com and the donation for the book. It’s actually going to help Dress for Success Greater London and dress for success Chattanooga which are charities that help unemployed 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. undoubtably. Well, we all come out on the other side of this.
Jason Hartman 17:39
Okay, Juanita, thank you so much for joining us.
Juanita Ingram 17:41
Thank you for having me.
Jason Hartman 17:48
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