A non-governmental organization (NGO) that helps migrant workers on Saturday distributed more than 1,000 medical-grade masks to migrant fishers in Yilan County.
Members of the Migrant Workers’ Concern Desk from Saint Christopher’s Church in Taipei distributed the masks, along with about 200 donated jackets and sweaters to hundreds of migrant fishers.
Father Gioan Tran Van Thiet, the church’s assistant parish priest, who visits migrant fishers in Yilan weekly, said the masks were donated by Philippine migrant workers in Saudi Arabia.
He said that fishers who live and sleep in cramped conditions on fishing boats can be vulnerable to infections.
Nguyen Van Va, who is from Vietnam’s Nghe An Province, said he really appreciated the masks and was unaware that Taiwan had implemented mask rationing.
“My employer did not tell me anything,” he said. “The last time I purchased masks was last year and this year I have been working long hours and I did not have time to go and buy masks.”
Demand for masks has surged amid fears over the spread of COVID-19, and shortages have forced the government to ration purchases to two per person per week at pharmacies contracted by the National Health Insurance system.
Marites Lopez Hingpis, a caregiver in the county’s Nanfangao (南方澳) port, said she frequently needs to accompany her patient to hospital, but her employer does not provide masks.
The measures announced by the Ministry of Labor on Jan. 30 to help combat the spread of the virus require employers to provide masks to employees if the employees’ jobs involve them visiting hospitals.
There are more than 2,000 migrant fishers in the Yilan area, the Yilan Migrant Fishermen Union said.
Kenting National Park service technician Yang Jien-fon (楊政峰) won a silver award in World Grand Prix Photography Awards Spring Season for his photograph of two male rat snakes intertwined in combat. Yang’s colleagues at Kenting National Park said he is a master of nature photography who has been held back by his job in civil service. The awards accept entries in all four seasons across six categories: architectural and urban photography, black-and-white and fine art photography, commercial and fashion photography, documentary and people photography, nature and experimental photography, and mobile photography. Awards are ranked according to scores and divided into platinum, gold and
More than half of the bamboo vipers captured in Tainan in the past few years were found in the city’s Sinhua District (新化), while other districts had smaller catches or none at all. Every year, Tainan captures about 6,000 snakes which have made their way into people’s homes. Of the six major venomous snakes in Taiwan, the cobra, the many-banded krait, the brown-spotted pit viper and the bamboo viper are the most frequently captured. The high concentration of bamboo vipers captured in Sinhua District is puzzling. Tainan Agriculture Bureau Forestry and Nature Conservation Division head Chu Chien-ming (朱健明) earlier this week said that the
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