RESTRICTIONS CONTINUE: People must wear a mask when outdoors, while employers should allow working from home or flexible hours, Chen Shih-chung said
The Cabinet yesterday extended a nationwide level 3 COVID-19 alert until June 28 as the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) reported 211 locally transmitted cases and 26 deaths. The CECC on May 15 issued the level 3 alert for Taipei and New Taipei City, saying it would last until May 28. Four days later, it expanded the alert to the entire nation before announcing on May 28 that the alert period had been extended to Monday next week. The latest extension was announced following a disease prevention meeting at the Executive Yuan in Taipei yesterday morning. Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung
‘DO NOT STAY TOO LONG’: People would be required to provide personal contact information when entering traditional markets, and illegal vendors would be fined
The Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) yesterday announced five crowd control measures for traditional and night markets as it reported 335 locally transmitted COVID-19 infections, eight backlogged cases and 36 deaths. Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中), who heads the center, said that the 335 new local cases are 189 males and 146 females, adding that they developed symptoms from May 24 to Saturday. The eight backlogged cases are three men and five women aged 20 to 70, Chen said. They began experiencing symptoms on Tuesday and Wednesday, he said. As most of the pending cases due to delayed test results
PRIORITY GROUPS: A line of people were waiting at the Good Liver Clinic, apparently to get shots, while the CECC announced more priority groups for jabs
The Taipei-based Good Liver Clinic is to be fined NT$2 million (US$72,028) after giving free COVID-19 vaccine shots to people not in groups eligible to receive them, Taipei Deputy Mayor Vivian Huang (黃珊珊) said yesterday. The Zhongshan District (中山)-based clinic was removed from the city’s list of vaccination venues and health officials would be investigated for giving 1,113 doses to the clinic, Huang told an afternoon news conference at Taipei City Hall. The Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister paper) on Tuesday in an exclusive story citing an anonymous tip reported that a Taipei clinic was doling out unused vaccines. People in
PHASE 2: The firm’s CEO said that the results were good and the experimental vaccine safe, but added that hoped-for phase 3 trials would be expensive
Medigen Vaccine Biologics Corp (高端疫苗) yesterday reported positive results from an interim analysis of phase 2 trials for its COVID-19 vaccine, saying that the vaccine demonstrated high seroconversion rates and geometric mean titer (GMT) figures. A seroconversion rate is the percentage of participants in a trial displaying virus-specific immune memory after being given a vaccine, while the GMT measures the level of neutralizing antibody response, Medigen said. The experimental vaccine has a seroconversion rate of 99.8 percent and its GMT was 662 among the participants aged 20 to 89, while the gauges rose to 99.9 percent and 733 respectively in participants aged
NUMBERS HAVE FALLEN: Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung said there are good signs, but ‘we cannot afford to let our guard down now’
The Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) yesterday reported 219 new locally transmitted COVID-19 infections and 22 deaths. Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中), who heads the center, said that the 219 local infections — 117 male and 102 female — were aged from under five to over 100 years old, and they began having symptoms between May 22 and Monday. New Taipei City reported 123 cases, followed by Taipei with 54, Miaoli County with 16, Taoyuan with 13, Keelung with eight, Changhua County with two, and one each in Hsinchu City, Taichung and Tainan. The 22 deaths were 15 men and
The US is to donate 750,000 doses of COVID-19 vaccine to Taiwan, a delegation of three US senators said in Taipei yesterday. The delegation made the announcement during a brief stopover in Taiwan. The White House on Thursday announced that it aims to donate at least 80 million doses globally by the end of this month. The donation would be part of the first tranche of 25 million doses. “It was critical to the United States that Taiwan be included in the first group to receive vaccines, because we recognize your urgent need and we value this partnership,” US Senator Tammy Duckworth
KO SAYS NO: Taipei’s health director said that a vaccine shortage made it difficult to get data from clinics, while two foundations apologized over their jabs program
Taipei Department of Health Director Huang Shier-chieg (黃世傑) yesterday tendered his resignation after 1,285 people were vaccinated for COVID-19 at a Taipei clinic without necessarily being eligible. However, the resignation was not accepted by Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲). The Good Liver Clinic (好心肝診所), which has several branches, on Monday requested 15 vaccine vials, saying that it was to inoculate its 101 health workers, and on Tuesday requested an additional 100 vials. However, the vaccines were also given to volunteers working at the clinic, and at the Good Liver Foundation and other personnel. The Taipei City Government on Wednesday fined the clinic NT$2 million
By the end of last year, over 150,000 migrant workers in Singapore had been infected with COVID-19, roughly 47 percent of its migrant worker population. Their lives, already under harsh control in situations worse than in Taiwan, came under even stricter rule. Whole dorms were quarantined and even healthy workers were allowed out only infrequently, to shop in designated shops and, of course, to work. To its credit, the government did force employers to pay workers, and gave them medical care and support. Yet, in the end, the Singapore worker outbreak underwrote even tighter controls on the migrant worker population. Many
Academia Sinica academician Chen Pei-jer (陳培哲), who on Monday resigned from the vaccine review committee, has been accused of working as an adviser for a Shanghai-based Chinese pharmaceutical company. Chen was allegedly listed as a “scientific adviser” on the Web site of Zhimeng Biopharma Inc (上海摯盟醫藥科技公司) in Shanghai, China, while he served as a committee member, sources said yesterday. If the claims are true, it could mean Chen had contravened the law restricting government officials and employees from undertaking concurrent jobs in China and other countries. Chen is also a professor at state-funded National Taiwan University (NTU) and a medical researcher at NTU
The Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) yesterday said that local governments must offer COVID-19 vaccination according to the center’s priority list, or they could face receiving reduced numbers of vaccines in future distributions. The center released a COVID-19 vaccine priority list with 10 groups in late February, before vaccinations began in late March and by the middle of last month, people in the first to eighth groups and family members living with people in the top three groups were eligible for government-funded vaccines. However, after a local outbreak occurred in the middle of last month, the center limited the number of eligible
Floyd Mayweather Jr on Sunday night predictably dominated YouTube star Logan Paul in an eight-round exhibition fight in Miami before saying it could have been his final performance. Mayweather, who weighed in at 70.3kg with his opponent tipping the scales at 85.96kg, produced a slick performance much to the delight of the crowd at Hard Rock Stadium in Florida. Intermittent rain throughout the evening failed to put a damper on the 44-year-old Mayweather’s first performance since beating Japanese kickboxer Tenshin Nasukawa in December 2018. With the likes of former heavyweight champion Evander Holyfield watching on from ringside, the 26-year-old Paul lasted eight rounds
CARING FOR THE SICK: The center said that it would distribute monoclonal antibody drugs and negative pressure isolation units to hospitals across the nation
The Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) yesterday reported 286 new local cases of COVID-19 and 24 deaths. The local cases are 141 males and 145 females, Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中), who heads the center, told a daily news briefing in Taipei. This week’s total case number seems to have slightly decreased compared with last week’s total, but has remained relatively level, Chen said. Previous centers of the local outbreak recorded the largest number of new cases, with 120 in New Taipei City, 56 in Miaoli County and 49 in Taipei, center data showed. Taoyuan had 19 new cases, Hsinchu County
NOT WELCOME: The mayor of Budapest changed the names of the streets around the planned site to draw attention to the Chinese government’s rights abuses
Thousands of Hungarians on Saturday demonstrated in Budapest against a plan by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s government to build a campus of a top Chinese university in the city. About 10,000 people, according to an Agence France-Presse photographer, marched through the Hungarian capital to protest the proposed Fudan University campus, which is planned to be completed by 2024. According to a deal signed between Hungary and the Shanghai-based university’s president, the campus, its first in Europe, would be a 500,000m2 complex. However, the sprawling project has fed unease about Hungary’s diplomatic tilt from West to East and its soaring indebtedness to China,
A student at National Chengchi University jumped from the roof of his apartment in the early hours of Sunday after he was allegedly bullied online. The 21-year-old student, surnamed Huang (黃), on Friday last week posted on the university’s online discussion forum asking the public to judge a dispute he was having with a female roommate about rent. An anonymous post on the online forum Dcard appeared on the same day, saying he was the last person to judge others, and that he was “a heavy smoker, lazy, a terrible group member for class projects and a person with a poor
POPULAR PRODUCTS: Most of the devices were made by Da-Jian Innovations, a drone maker, and TP-Link, which sells routers and other networking equipment
More than 2,500 public schools and government offices are using 19,256 blacklisted Chinese communications and electronic devices, raising national security concerns, a National Center for Cyber Security Technology (NCCST) report said. The report, released late last month, showed that many of the blacklisted products were from Shenzhen-based Da-Jiang Innovations Technology (DJI, 大疆創新), which makes drones and cameras for aerial photography. The Executive Yuan has previously instructed schools and government offices to report back on their use and installation of blacklisted communications and electronic devices, which are to be replaced by the end of the year. If they are not replaced, due to budget
The Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) yesterday reported 274 locally transmitted COVID-19 cases and 25 deaths. Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中), who heads the center, said that the local infections, 142 males and 132 females, are aged from under five to over 90, and symptoms began between May 14 and Tuesday. The confirmed cases are mostly residents of New Taipei City, with 162, followed by Taipei (63), Taoyuan (15), Miaoli County (12), Keelung (10), Changhua County and Nantou County (three each), Yilan County (two), and Hsinchu County, Taichung, Chiayi City and Tainan (one each), Chen said. The 25 deaths were
Joseph Liu chose Norway for his legal studies because he wanted to learn more about human rights. But instead, he’s been fighting the Norwegian government for the past four years for the right to use his national identity. Following a diplomatic row with China in 2010, Norway changed the nationality of its Taiwanese residents to “Chinese.” Liu and others launched the My Name, My Right movement to raise funds and pressure the authorities to change the country designation back to Taiwan. They eventually took the case to the Norwegian supreme court, where they lost in November last year. While the outcome
JHUNAN CLUSTER: As of Sunday, more than 130 King Yuan Electronics Co factory workers had been confirmed to have COVID-19, the Miaoli County Government said
King Yuan Electronics Co (KYEC, 京元電子) yesterday said that its operations in Miaoli County are continuing, despite COVID-19 cluster infections at its factories there, as it has reallocated its labor force after about 2,100 of its migrant workers were quarantined on Friday last week. While production volume has fallen, factories are still operational, as local workers have been reassigned to fill the gaps, the IC testing and packaging service firm said. The company said that output and revenue this month would each drop by 30 to 35 percent, more than its previous estimate of 4 to 6 percent. KYEC’s revenue last month grew
The military is to mount two tank guns purchased from the US on domestically made armored vehicles to aid in the research and development (R&D) of mobile gun systems, sources said on Saturday. Two sets of M68A2 105mm tank guns are to be mounted on Taiwanese-built CM-32 Clouded Leopards, the sources said. The official R&D would start next year, and the military hopes to produce two prototypes by 2023, they added. A 105mm tank gun is expected to be the main weapon of armored vehicles, with a secondary system to incorporate a 7.62mm coaxial machine gun with a 12.7mm remote-controlled machine gun turret. Sources
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