The Taipei Blood Center yesterday urged the public to donate blood after it reported acute shortages in the wake of TransAsia Airways Flight GE235’s crash into the Keelung River on Wednesday.
Taipei Blood Center Planning Section official Chiao Chih-hung (角志宏) said that the center currently only has less than five days’ worth of blood, and it is in particularly dire need of type A blood, with just four days of supply remaining.
“The supply of blood is generally low at this time of the year, when people are less willing to roll up their sleeves and give blood either due to the cold weather or from being too preoccupied preparing for the Lunar New Year,” Chiao said.
However, the blood supply dropped further after the center sent 200 bags of blood totaling 50,000cc to the eight hospitals that have been treating 17 people injured in the crash, which killed at least 35, with eight still missing, Chiao said.
In order to cope with the potentially high demand for blood during the Lunar New Year holiday, Chiao said the center needs to store at least 10 days’ worth of blood — approximately 18,000 bags of donated blood — before the start of the extended holiday on Feb. 18.
Physician Hsieh Hui-ho (謝輝和) advised people to stay away from fatty and high-calorie foods, such as fried chicken, seafood, cheesecake or chocolate, for 24 hours prior to donating blood to avoid chylomicronemia, also known as lipoprotein lipase deficiency, a build-up of fat-laden chylomicrons in the blood that occurs in about 6 percent of all donated blood in the country.
“People who suffer from chylomicronemia are urged to manage their weight, increase the frequency of outdoor exercise and avoid staying up late, smoking and drinking. Adopting a high-fiber diet can also reduce one’s chance of developing the condition,” Hsieh said.
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:
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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