The Chinese Culture University student association on Sunday urged the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) to re-evaluate a quarantine location for Taiwanese to be evacuated from Wuhan, China, after Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) earlier in the day said it is in Taipei’s Yangmingshan (陽明山) area.
The CECC said that facilities have been selected in northern, central and southern Taiwan to quarantine the Taiwanese who are to be evacuated on a charter flight from Wuhan due to a 2019 novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) outbreak there.
It refused to disclose the locations to avoid panic, but Ko said that one of them is an old Bank of Taiwan dormitory in the Yangmingshan area near the university’s campus.
Photo courtesy of Chinese Culture University
The student association issued a statement on Facebook saying that it is “deeply concerned” about the quarantine location being so close to the campus, which might cause anxiety among the university’s students and faculty.
“The association strongly urges the CECC and the Taipei City Government to carefully re-evaluate the resettlement location,” it said. “We also urge Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je to integrate disease prevention information before making announcements to prevent panic among the university’s students and teachers, as well as the public.”
It also urged the university to make sure Chinese students are placed in home quarantine for 14 days before returning to school, and also to announce the university’s disease prevention and disinfection measures so that students can feel safe returning to school.
Centers for Disease Control Deputy Director-General Chuang Jen-hsiang (莊人祥) yesterday said that healthcare professionals would screen the health conditions of the evacuees at the airport and that only those without symptoms would be transported to the quarantine facilities.
Those with any symptoms would be taken to medical facilities for further examination and treatment, he said, adding that the evacuees would not come into direct contact with other people, so people living near the quarantine facilities do not need to worry.
As Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中), head of the CECC, on Sunday said that people who disclose information about the quarantine locations without the center’s consent would be dealt with according to the regulations, Ko yesterday said that he did not have any bad intentions in revealing the location.
He was informed about the CECC choosing the location, because the city government needs to provide healthcare personnel and police officers, Ko said, adding that he did not think it was a secret, as people would eventually learn about it.
The outbreak in China has gotten out of control due to the Chinese government’s culture of hiding information, Ko said, adding that he believes that the Taiwanese government should be open and transparent by announcing the quarantine locations before the evacuees arrive.
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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