The Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) yesterday said that it would use the name “Wuhan pneumonia” when communicating with the public about the disease caused by the previously-named 2019 novel coronavirus, after the WHO on Tuesday officially named the virus “COVID-19.”
The virus was first detected in Wuhan, China.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told reporters in Geneva, Switzerland, that “co” stands for corona, “vi” for virus and “d” for “disease,” while “19” denotes the year 2019, as the outbreak was first identified in December last year.
The name was chosen to avoid references to specific geographical locations, animal species, an individual or group of people, and prevent the use of other names that might be stigmatizing, he said.
The WHO last month temporarily named it 2019 novel coronavirus, while the Chinese National Health Commission had temporarily called it “novel coronavirus pneumonia,” and many news reports called it the “Wuhan coronavirus.”
The CECC yesterday said that it would also adopt the name COVID-19 to be in line with international information published by the WHO.
However, it would continue to call it “Wuhan pneumonia” when announcing disease information to the public for better understanding, it said.
Centers for Disease Control Deputy Director-General Chuang Jen-hsiang (莊人祥) said the decision was made because people are used to calling the disease “Wuhan pneumonia,” so they might be confused by the name COVID-19.
The official name for the illness as a notifiable infectious disease in Taiwan — “severe pneumonia with novel pathogens” — is too long for people to remember, Chuang added.
In related news, the Taiwan Blood Services Foundation on Tuesday urged three types of people to postpone donating blood for at least 28 days: those who have returned from China, Hong Kong, Macau or Singapore; people who have recovered from COVID-19; and people who have come into direct contact with infected people.
It also urged people who have developed a fever and respiratory infection or pneumonia symptoms after donating blood to see a doctor and contact the blood center as soon as possible.
The Ministry of Transportation and Communications yesterday inaugurated the Danjiang Bridge across the Tamsui River in New Taipei City, saying that the structure would be an architectural icon and traffic artery for Taiwan. Feted as a major engineering achievement, the Danjiang Bridge is 920m long, 211m tall at the top of its pylon, and is the longest single-pylon asymmetric cable-stayed bridge in the world, the government’s Web site for the structure said. It was designed by late Iraqi-British architect Zaha Hadid. The structure, with a maximum deck of 70m, accommodates road and light rail traffic, and affords a 200m navigation channel for boats,
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest foundry service provider, yesterday said that global semiconductor revenue is projected to hit US$1.5 trillion in 2030, after the figure exceeds US$1 trillion this year, as artificial intelligence (AI) demand boosts consumption of token and compute power. “We are still at the beginning of the AI revolution, but we already see a significant impact across the whole semiconductor ecosystem,” TSMC deputy cochief operating officer Kevin Zhang (張曉強) said at the company’s annual technology symposium in Hsinchu City. “It is fair to say that in the past decade, smartphones and other mobile devices were
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