Elementary schools, high schools and certain universities on Tuesday reopened after the extended winter vacation, presenting new challenges in the fight against the spread of COVID-19.
Schools plan to take the temperature of anyone entering their campuses, which is certain to slow the flow of people, and is sure to be exacerbated by the sheer volume of parents dropping off children.
The vehicles and the staff measuring students’ temperatures all crammed outside the main gates is a recipe for traffic chaos, requiring judicious traffic measures.
Many people are familiar with the story of British Vice-Admiral Horatio Nelson who, as a child, was riding a pony to school with his elder brother when they encountered a large snow drift. His brother wanted to turn back, but Nelson, undeterred, insisted that they push on.
With the coronavirus threatening to spread in the nation, students and parents would do well to forget this story. If they have a fever, they should stay at home.
The government has instructed schools to keep windows open during class, even when air conditioning is on.
Unfortunately, a warm spell has just started, and many classrooms are near main roads, where noise from outdoors makes it impossible to hear the teacher. Some classrooms do not have windows. Therefore, some degree of flexibility is needed.
Good hand hygiene is effective in preventing the spread of the virus, but whether schools have sufficient sinks or wash basins, and whether soap is provided, is an issue, as is whether teachers remind students to wash their hands.
Many schools allocate cleaning tasks to students, such as maintaining public spaces. For the time being, schools should consider whether these cleaning duties are appropriate.
Toilets are areas where students could easily pick up the virus, so if schools continue to have students clean there, they should ensure that proper protective measures are in place, that the students are aware of the importance of protecting themselves and that they have the training to do so.
The regulations for canceling classes in the unfortunate event that there is a confirmed case among teachers, staff or students have been announced.
However, while the regulations governing whether a whole class needs to be canceled are quite clear, the same cannot be said for universities.
Given the nature of the elective course system, if a student is confirmed to have the virus, it poses all kinds of problems.
Students might be enrolled in five classes, all with different teachers and students, and all of those teachers would be teaching other classes, which would all have additional groups of students. Are all of them to be quarantined at home for 14 days?
There is also a shortage of the equipment that schools and universities need to carry out disease-prevention measures: Devices such as infrared, forehead and ear thermometers, as well as masks, are all necessary.
Instead of leaving individual schools to scramble to acquire equipment and personnel that they need to implement the required disease-prevention measures, it would make more sense for the central and local governments to coordinate the distribution of these resources, making sure that they are sent where they are needed.
Everyone should approach the disease-prevention effort as they would a military campaign. Everyone must be vigilant.
Chang Ruay-shiung is president of National Taipei University of Business.
Translated by Paul Cooper
The EU’s biggest banks have spent years quietly creating a new way to pay that could finally allow customers to ditch their Visa Inc and Mastercard Inc cards — the latest sign that the region is looking to dislodge two of the most valuable financial firms on the planet. Wero, as the project is known, is now rolling out across much of western Europe. Backed by 16 major banks and payment processors including BNP Paribas SA, Deutsche Bank AG and Worldline SA, the platform would eventually allow a German customer to instantly settle up with, say, a hotel in France
On August 6, Ukraine crossed its northeastern border and invaded the Russian region of Kursk. After spending more than two years seeking to oust Russian forces from its own territory, Kiev turned the tables on Moscow. Vladimir Putin seemed thrown off guard. In a televised meeting about the incursion, Putin came across as patently not in control of events. The reasons for the Ukrainian offensive remain unclear. It could be an attempt to wear away at the morale of both Russia’s military and its populace, and to boost morale in Ukraine; to undermine popular and elite confidence in Putin’s rule; to
A traffic accident in Taichung — a city bus on Sept. 22 hit two Tunghai University students on a pedestrian crossing, killing one and injuring the other — has once again brought up the issue of Taiwan being a “living hell for pedestrians” and large vehicle safety to public attention. A deadly traffic accident in Taichung on Dec. 27, 2022, when a city bus hit a foreign national, his Taiwanese wife and their one-year-old son in a stroller on a pedestrian crossing, killing the wife and son, had shocked the public, leading to discussions and traffic law amendments. However, just after the
The international community was shocked when Israel was accused of launching an attack on Lebanon by rigging pagers to explode. Most media reports in Taiwan focused on whether the pagers were produced locally, arousing public concern. However, Taiwanese should also look at the matter from a security and national defense perspective. Lebanon has eschewed technology, partly because of concerns that countries would penetrate its telecommunications networks to steal confidential information or launch cyberattacks. It has largely abandoned smartphones and modern telecommunications systems, replacing them with older and relatively basic communications equipment. However, the incident shows that using older technology alone cannot
RSS