First of all, the key to the success of epidemic prevention lies in the honest disclosure of the public and the transparency of information. In cases of suspected or confirmed cases that require self-health management, people must self-isolate at home for 14 days. This is of course necessary for the needs of public health and epidemic prevention, but the resulting interruption of income will greatly affect the livelihood of the quarantined, especially when the quarantined is the main source of income for the family's livelihood. The sudden interruption of income will have an impact on family income.
Worrying that the lack of work or the telemarketing list interruption of income will give people an incentive to hide their travel history or contact history, which is not conducive to the conduct of the epidemic investigation, and will increase social costs in vain. The current measures taken by Taiwan are to subsidize 1,000 yuan per day from the government budget. The measure in advanced countries is to increase sick pay in health insurance, usually 60% of the insured amount, to compensate the insured for the interruption of income during the isolation period. This may be a payment plan that Taiwan can consider to be included in the revision of the law in the future.
Second, the segmentation of the labor market is also an important variable. As mentioned earlier, workers who can join social insurance are generally workers in the formal sector. They can enjoy sick pay for health insurance and unemployment benefits (60% of insured salary) guaranteed by the Employment Insurance Act. However, workers in the informal sector are not entitled to these benefits. On the one hand, their unemployment risk is higher than that of formal sector workers; on the other hand, they are less able to enjoy various social insurance benefits. In particular, driven by the previous wave of labor market flexibilization policies in various countries, the proportion of atypical laborers in various countries has risen sharply.