New Party Taipei City Coun-cilors yesterday urged the government to completely seal off the capital for 10 days in a bid to control the spread of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS).
However, the extreme proposal was seen as unworkable by city authorities and other councilors across the party line.
New Party Chairman Yok Mu-ming (
Yok said that during the 10-day period all schools and public buildings would be shut down, with only those facilities deemed necessary for the provision of necessities allowed to function on a limited basis
"People are very worried about SARS because no one is sure who is carrying the virus," Yok said. "The most effective way to avoid SARS carriers is to let healthy people go through a short-term quarantine."
New Party Taipei City Councilor Fei Hung-tai (
"Why not take a more positive step and stop all unnecessary movement by staying home for 10 days to let the disease subside," Fei said.
However, the proposal raised by the tiny party, which does not have any representatives outside of Taipei City Council, was widely seen by other city councilors as too difficult to carry out.
DPP Taipei City Councilor Hsu Chia-ching (
"Before the so-called community infection in the Wanhua District can be confirmed, there is no need to take such measures to limit people's daily activities," Hsu said.
"If Taipei City was sealed off then the place would be even more chaotic, as can be seen by the situation at the Taipei Municipal Hoping Hospital after it was sealed off last month," Hsu said.
Hsu, who holds a master's degree in health and welfare policy from National Yangming University, said, "At the moment, most of the SARS cases are derived from Hoping Hospital.
"What we need to focus on now is how to control the spread of disease by anyone having contact with the hospital, not to get paranoid about the disease," Hsu said. "People should lead a normal life as much as possible."
PFP city councilor Lee Hsin (
"No other country in the world would consider such a plan, including the most badly hit," Lee said. "It is not necessary yet for Taiwan to do so."
Former president Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) mention of Taiwan’s official name during a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) on Wednesday was likely a deliberate political play, academics said. “As I see it, it was intentional,” National Chengchi University Graduate Institute of East Asian Studies professor Wang Hsin-hsien (王信賢) said of Ma’s initial use of the “Republic of China” (ROC) to refer to the wider concept of “the Chinese nation.” Ma quickly corrected himself, and his office later described his use of the two similar-sounding yet politically distinct terms as “purely a gaffe.” Given Ma was reading from a script, the supposed slipup
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
The bodies of two individuals were recovered and three additional bodies were discovered on the Shakadang Trail (砂卡礑) in Taroko National Park, eight days after the devastating earthquake in Hualien County, search-and-rescue personnel said. The rescuers reported that they retrieved the bodies of a man and a girl, suspected to be the father and daughter from the Yu (游) family, 500m from the entrance of the trail on Wednesday. The rescue team added that despite the discovery of the two bodies on Friday last week, they had been unable to retrieve them until Wednesday due to the heavy equipment needed to lift