TOURISM
Hot spring pipeline restored
The hot spring pipeline system in Wulai District (烏來) is functioning again after weeks of repairs following damage by Typhoon Soudelor early last month, the New Taipei City Government said on Wednesday. Most of the hot spring businesses in Wulai are to reopen to the public in the next few weeks, city officials said, but added that some would remain closed because certain facilities still needed to be restored. The city government said it plans to organize a series of activities to promote Wulai’s hot spring season from late next month to attract more tourists. Soudelor hit the nation on Aug. 8, causing massive flooding and other damage throughout the country. In Wulai, which is famous for its hot springs, the network of pipelines carrying the water was severely damaged.
HEALTH
Hot Dengue could break record
The number of dengue fever infections reported since May could today break the 15,492 level recorded for the whole of last year, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday. As of Wednesday, confirmed cases nationwide had climbed to 15,282, with 98.4 percent occurring in Tainan and Kaohsiung, the CDC said. While the country has seen the number of cases increase daily by between 600 and 800 recently, it is likely that the figures for last year — by far the highest annual number since official records began — will be surpassed today, it said. There is unlikely to be a drop in the number of cases in the near future, CDC Deputy Director-General Chuang Jen-hsiang (莊人祥) said. The agency had earlier predicted that the total number of dengue fever cases nationwide could hit 30,000 to 35,000 during the current outbreak, which might last into January.
FLU SEASON: Twenty-six severe cases were reported from Tuesday last week to Monday, including a seven-year-old girl diagnosed with influenza-associated encephalopathy Nearly 140,000 people sought medical assistance for diarrhea last week, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said on Tuesday. From April 7 to Saturday last week, 139,848 people sought medical help for diarrhea-related illness, a 15.7 percent increase from last week’s 120,868 reports, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The number of people who reported diarrhea-related illness last week was the fourth highest in the same time period over the past decade, Lee said. Over the past four weeks, 203 mass illness cases had been reported, nearly four times higher than the 54 cases documented in the same period
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
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