The Taipei City Government yesterday said that it is collaborating with two hotels that are providing 40 rooms to meet quarantine needs amid the COVID-19 epidemic.
Taipei has a considerable need for home quarantine, as it has the highest concentration of residents returning from level 3 countries such as South Korea and Italy, as well as international visitors, Taipei Deputy Mayor Vivian Huang (黃珊珊) said after presiding over a disease-prevention meeting at Taipei City Hall.
The city is communicating with a third hotel in the hopes of setting aside more rooms for people who need to be quarantined, city deputy spokesman Tai Yu-wen (戴于文) added.
Photo provided by the Dihua Commercial District Development Association
The city said that it has completed a standard operation procedure guide of more than 60 pages on what amenities to offer, how meals should be delivered, how housekeeping should be conducted, how people displaying pneumonia-like symptoms should be hospitalized and how rooms should be disinfected, adding that other cities and counties have asked how they could set up similar facilities.
Taipei Depart of Information and Tourism Commissioner Liu Yi-ting (劉奕霆) said that as of yesterday, at least 20 Taiwanese businesspeople, students from China, Hong Kong and Macau, and residents who have returned from Italy or South Korea had checked into the hotels.
All of the occupants were ordered to quarantine themselves at home, but do not have a fixed residence in the nation or live with family members, he said, adding that they would have to pay the bills themselves.
Asked whether the central air-conditioning at hotels could cause COVID-19 to spread if any of the occupants was carrier, Liu said that the virus is spread through saliva or droplets, not through the air.
Both hotels cooperating with the city had been inspected by the Taipei Department of Environmental Protection and Taipei Department of Civil Affairs beforehand to ensure that they conform to regulations, he said.
Regarding a case in Hong Kong in which a pet dog was found to have a low level of the virus, Huang said that Taipei requires the pets of people under quarantine to be quarantined as well.
It would quarantine the pets of people ordered to monitor their health at home if needed, he added.
NBA player Enes Kanter Freedom has taken to social media to urge Jeremy Lin (林書豪) to “stand with Taiwan” and stop taking “dirty Chinese Communist Party money.” “Haven’t you had enough of that Dirty Chinese Communist Party money feeding you to stay silent?” Freedom wrote on Facebook and Twitter on Sunday. The 29-year-old Boston Celtics center, who took a new surname when he became a US citizen on Monday last week, urged Lin: “Stand with Taiwan! Stop bowing to money & the Dictatorship.” Lin, a US citizen of Taiwanese descent who last year obtained a Taiwanese passport, has not responded to Freedom. Lin is
PAST CATCHING UP: Raphael Lin was last year convicted of intimidating his girlfriend at the time, and in 2015 allegedly confined his parents and assaulted his mother Doctoral student and media commentator Raphael Lin (林秉樞) is in detention and has had his communication rights limited after he was arrested on Wednesday for allegedly subjecting Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Kao Chia-yu (高嘉瑜) to two days of violence in a hotel room, the New Taipei District Court said yesterday. The New Taipei City Prosecutors’ Office had filed a request to detain Lin — who was Kao’s boyfriend at the time of the incident — with the court approving the request early yesterday. The prosecutors’ office said that it is likely to charge Lin with seven offenses: assault causing bodily harm, violating
A COVID-19 vaccine trial carried out in Taiwan has found that a combination of the AstraZeneca and the locally developed Medigen vaccines is more effective than two doses of AstraZeneca, the research team said on Saturday. The trial, which was initiated by Chang Gung Memorial Hospital, examined 100 people aged 22 to 62 divided into two groups: One group was vaccinated with two AstraZeneca doses, while the other received a first dose of AstraZeneca and a second dose of Medigen, team leader Chen Chih-jung (陳志榮) said. The geometric mean titers (GMTs) of neutralizing antibodies in the mix-and-match group after 10 days were
Toads are a symbol of prosperity and good fortune in Taiwan, but the unexpected discovery of an invasive species has officials and environmentalists scrambling to contain their spread. With flashlights in hand and shielded by protective gloves, dozens of volunteers from the Taiwan Amphibian Conservation Society worked through the night searching rice fields and vegetable plots for their quarry — the cane toad. There should be no reason for these large and highly toxic amphibians to exist in Caotun (草屯), a township in the foothills of the central mountain range. Cane toads are indigenous to South and Central America, and while they have
RSS