The Executive Yuan will launch a national SARS prevention command center under its ad hoc SARS response committee today, in order to better integrate the nation's SARS prevention mechanisms and resources.
The Cabinet is also scheduled to hold an emergency meeting today to approve the NT$50 billion budget earmarked to subsidize SARS-related medical expenses and mitigate the economic impact on local industries.
According to Department of Health Deputy Director Lee Lung-teng (李龍騰), the command center will be headed by the department's former director-general Lee Ming-liang (李明亮) and situated in the basement of the Center for Disease Control (CDC).
"While we'll be publicly updating SARS statistics and the implementation of prevention measures every two hours, the Cabinet's SARS committee will be announcing new government initiatives designed to combat SARS," Lee said.
The establishment of the center reportedly has a lot to do with the criticism made by two World Health Organization experts. They have chastised the nation's SARS prevention mechanisms for being disorderly and that the SARS-related information for being ineffectively shared and transmitted.
According to Cabinet Secretary-General Liu Shih-fang (劉世芳), the government set up a SARS-response committee on March 28, 14 days after the nation's first suspected SARS case was reported.
After the legislature passed the special regulation, the Cabinet changed the moniker of the committee and modified its structure in accordance with the rule.
The committee is co-chaired by Premier Yu Shyi-kun, Vice Premier Lin Hsin-i (
Lin leads the committee's six task teams including logistics control, economy and industry, laws and budget, foreign affairs, supervision, and information release. Lee Ming-liang heads the committee's three task teams. They are the medical, departure control, home quarantine and national defense resources teams.
A research task force, headed by Academia Sinica President Lee Yuan-tseh (
As the law stands, a special fund totaling NT$50 billion should be used subsidize SARS-related medical expenses and mitigate the economic impact on local industries. The bill also stipulates that the government must compensate health care workers who give their lives fighting the epidemic.
As of yesterday, a total of 40,039 people were required to be put under the 10-day compulsory home quarantine program, according to Vice Minister of the Interior Hsu Yin-shen (
Today, the interior ministry will start installing video surveillance systems on the homes of those people under quarantine, the nation's three government-designated venues for the compulsory quarantine program are expected to accommodate 514 people by Wednesday.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
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Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching