TRAVEL
Singapore No. 1 choice
Taiwanese like Singapore the most out of 12 major countries in Asia and beyond, according to the results of a survey released yesterday by the Taiwan Public Opinion Foundation. The poll showed that 87.1 percent of respondents said they liked Singapore best, followed by Japan, at 83.9 percent. Canada was third with 83 percent, ahead of the EU (78.7 percent), Australia (78.6 percent) and the US (68.1 percent), foundation chairman You Ying-lung (游盈隆) said. Rounding out the top 10 countries were Saudi Arabia, South Korea, China and Russia, while the Philippines and North Korea were at the bottom, You said. North Korea was voted by 81.6 percent of respondents as the country they most disliked, while the Philippines and China were mentioned by 57.3 percent and 47.4 percent of respondents respectively. The survey, conducted on Monday and Tuesday last week among Taiwanese aged 20 and over, collected 1,185 valid samples.
WEATHER
Temperatures to drop again
The Central Weather Bureau said the weather this week would be changeable, with a cold front moving in late yesterday that was expected to lower temperatures sharply in northern Taiwan. The spring equinox yesterday saw cloudy to sunny conditions nationwide, with highs of up to 30°C in central and southern Taiwan. However, with a cold front approaching and strengthening northeastern seasonal winds, temperatures could drop by as much as 7°C today in the north and northeast, where there is a chance of brief showers. The seasonal winds are expected to ease tomorrow, with showers clearing and temperatures rising, the bureau said. From Thursday through Sunday, temperatures in northern and eastern Taiwan are expected to drop again with some brief showers, it said.
HEALTHCARE
Hospital takes EasyCard
The Tri-Service General Hospital in Taipei yesterday said people would be able to pay medical bills using EasyCards. Medical Service Section director Lin Ko-feng said the policy would make the hospital more patient-friendly and avoid the potential spread of bacteria and diseases when payments are made in cash and handled by hospital personnel. Several hospitals operated by the Taipei City and New Taipei City governments already accept payment using EasyCards. Lin said the hospital charges its patients about NT$450 per visit, which is a reasonable amount for EasyCard payments. The hospital sees about 6,000 to 7,000 patients per day, Lin said, adding that EasyCard payment, which takes about three seconds to process, is a win-win solution. The hospital added that people can also pay their bills with a credit card, a service previously only available for expensive examinations not covered by health insurance.
HEALTH
Norovirus cluster reported
There have been 14 cases of norovirus in Kaohsiung school campuses since the middle of last month, when schools reopened after the winter break, the Department of Health said on Sunday. About 150 students have reported illness, mostly elementary-school and kindergarten students, the department said, adding that after an investigation, norovirus was found to be the main culprit. Norovirus is a highly contagious disease for which there is no treatment. It is transmitted mostly through the fecal-oral route. From March 5 to March 11, the number of people going to the hospital with diarrhea was 7.17 percent, higher than the 6.68 percent in the same period last year, Centers for Disease Control data showed.
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