WORK
Afternoon has most injuries
Nearly 90 percent of injuries sustained by workers on the job occur after the midday break, according to Council of Labor Affairs statistics published yesterday. From 2002 to 2009, the council recorded a total of 3,097 fatal injuries on the job, with 87.3 percent occurring at small and medium-sized companies. The high turnover of workers at small companies means employers are more reluctant to provide adequate occupational safety and health training, the council’s Institute of Occupational Safety and Health said. The most dangerous jobs are in construction, with workers reporting a 58 percent injury rate, followed by the manufacturing industry (21.3 percent), and the transportation, warehousing and telecommunication sectors (5.8 percent), the council’s data showed.
HEALTH
Taipei raises epidemic alert
The Taipei City Department of Health has raised its enterovirus epidemic alert from yellow to orange after the first infection with severe complications recorded in the city this year was confirmed by the Centers for Disease Control on Wednesday. The orange alert is the second-highest on the health department’s four-color system for epidemics. The case involved a nine-year-old girl who was initially diagnosed on Jan. 11 with a cold, the department said. However, four days later the child developed symptoms such as general lethargy, stiffness in the right arm and confusion. The hospital reported the case to the health department and it was later confirmed as an enterovirus infection with severe complications. The girl has since fully recovered and was discharged from hospital on Jan. 20.
EDUCATION
Free preschool a big hit
A total of 94.5 percent of five-year-olds have taken part in the nation’s free preschool program, which was introduced in 2010, according to the Ministry of Education. The number was 95.37 percent among families with annual incomes under NT$500,000 (US$16,700), the ministry said. In the first phase of the program, the ministry subsidized participation in the program for children living on outlying islands. It extended eligibility for the program last year to children born between September 2005 and September 2006. While the preschool program is not compulsory, the number of children is expected to increase, the ministry said. Families earning less than NT$700,000 per year with children in the program were also eligible for a subsidy of at least NT$10,000 per child per year for general expenses, the ministry added.
TELECOMS
No HD license for PTS
National Communications Commission spokesperson Chen Jeng-chang (陳正倉) said on Wednesday that the commission was unlikely to grant Public Television Service (PTS) an official license for its high-definition (HD) channel. Funded by the Government Information Office, PTS established the nation’s first high-definition channel four years ago. However, because the operation was an experiment, the commission only granted a trial operational license. An official license would case a number of problems Chen said. For example, “the channel can only commit to a three-hour broadcast of high-definition programming per day,” he said. “A license for a high-definition channel means that a minimum of between 50 percent and 60 percent of the programs on that channel must be in high-definition quality.”
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
REVENGE TRAVEL: A surge in ticket prices should ease this year, but inflation would likely keep tickets at a higher price than before the pandemic Scoot is to offer six additional flights between Singapore and Northeast Asia, with all routes transiting Taipei from April 1, as the budget airline continues to resume operations that were paused during the COVID-19 pandemic, a Scoot official said on Thursday. Vice president of sales Lee Yong Sin (李榮新) said at a gathering with reporters in Taipei that the number of flights from Singapore to Japan and South Korea with a stop in Taiwan would increase from 15 to 21 each week. That change means the number of the Singapore-Taiwan-Tokyo flights per week would increase from seven to 12, while Singapore-Taiwan-Seoul
POOR PREPARATION: Cultures can form on food that is out of refrigeration for too long and cooking does not reliably neutralize their toxins, an epidemiologist said Medical professionals yesterday said that suspected food poisoning deaths revolving around a restaurant at Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 Store in Taipei could have been caused by one of several types of bacterium. Ho Mei-shang (何美鄉), an epidemiologist at Academia Sinica’s Institute of Biomedical Sciences, wrote on Facebook that the death of a 39-year-old customer of the restaurant suggests the toxin involved was either “highly potent or present in massive large quantities.” People who ate at the restaurant showed symptoms within hours of consuming the food, suggesting that the poisoning resulted from contamination by a toxin and not infection of the
BAD NEIGHBORS: China took fourth place among countries spreading disinformation, with Hong Kong being used as a hub to spread propaganda, a V-Dem study found Taiwan has been rated as the country most affected by disinformation for the 11th consecutive year in a study by the global research project Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem). The nation continues to be a target of disinformation originating from China, and Hong Kong is increasingly being used as a base from which to disseminate that disinformation, the report said. After Taiwan, Latvia and Palestine ranked second and third respectively, while Nicaragua, North Korea, Venezuela and China, in that order, were the countries that spread the most disinformation, the report said. Each country listed in the report was given a score,