With the nation’s influenza outbreak still at its peak and a strong continental air mass expected to bring cold weather this weekend, 52 hospitals across the nation are to provide a specialized outpatient service for flu-like illness during the three-day holiday.
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said in order to classify patients with flu-like symptoms and avoid having overcrowded emergency rooms during the holiday, 174 sessions of specialized outpatient service for flu-like illness are to be open to the public at 52 hospitals nationwide over the long weekend.
Conditions for using government-funded anti-influenza drugs — before March 31 — have been expanded to include “people who are suffering from flu-like symptoms and have a high fever for more than 48 hours” and “family members, colleagues or classmates of someone with flu-like symptoms,” so people with such symptoms should see a doctor as soon as possible to reduce the likeliness of developing severe complications.
According to the Ministry of Education, more than 70 classes in more than 40 schools nationwide have suspended classes due to the flu outbreak recently.
While the standards for allowing classes to be suspended due to flu vary in different cities and counties, the ministry said it plans to discuss with the Ministry of Health and Welfare next week about whether a national standard for suspending classes due to flu should be formulated.
The CDC suggests people with flu-like illness stay home to rest during the three-day weekend to prevent the flu from developing into severe complications, and also urges people suffering from flu-like symptoms to refrain from going to crowded public places, wash hands frequently and wear a facial mask.
The centers also said that if people suffering from flu develop symptoms of shortness of breath, breathing difficulty, cyanosis — when skin or lips turn a purplish-blue color, indicating low oxygen levels in red blood cells — blood sputum, chest pain, an altered state of consciousness, low blood pressure or high fever for more than 72 hours, they should wear a facial mask and seek medical advice immediately.
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
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater
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