As the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases increases in Taiwan, it is immensely important for people to stay at home and only travel if absolutely necessary. Classes are being canceled and people are working from home to reduce traffic, but in some cases the outbreak has sparked unnecessary travel.
There have been reports of university students, most of whose classes have been moved online, returning home from the level 3 alert areas of Taipei and New Taipei City to “take refuge” from the outbreak.
It is not just students. The Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister paper) reported that there have been at least two cases of infected people from Taipei and New Taipei City heading south to see relatives, causing additional panic and mandatory quarantines.
There is nothing to stop people from traveling, but such behavior only increases the risk of the virus spreading, while putting relatives — especially older ones — in danger.
It only takes one person to cause another infection cluster, so the best thing to do is to stay at home.
Former Taoyuan city councilor Wang Hao-yu (王浩宇), who now resides in Taitung, yesterday posted a more egregious example on Facebook.
Wang wrote that he encountered a group of university students who had ridden scooters all night from Taipei to escape the situation in the north. They were planning to stay in a guest house and even asked him if there was a bar nearby.
This is irresponsible behavior. Classes were not moved online to allow students a vacation — it was meant to do the opposite.
Taipei and New Taipei City are far better medically equipped to deal with cluster infections, and as most residents seem to be heeding the government’s warnings — as evidenced by empty streets and stores — there is little reason to escape.
Instead, it seems to be a case of people treating the crisis as an excuse to go on a trip, which is reckless and unacceptable during this emergency.
What is alarming is that several replies to Wang’s post mentioned hearing about coworkers planning excursions to Taitung and Hualien — whose officials are already concerned about the number of tour buses that flooded the unaffected counties over the weekend.
Singer Aljenljeng Tjaluvie, or Abao — who is from Taitung — received a cry for help from relatives in the county about tourists flooding mountain areas, causing panic among Aboriginal locals, many of whom are elderly or children, and in some cases live more than an hour from the nearest hospital.
Reportedly, many of the visitors were not wearing masks.
The heads of several Aboriginal-majority townships in Pingtung County on Monday advised hikers not to visit until the outbreak is contained, or at least plan their routes to avoid villages.
While it is legal to visit these places for now and it is admirable that people have really taken to Taiwan’s nature and mountains while weathering the pandemic, they should be considerate and exercise restraint until this outbreak is contained.
Weeks into the craze, nobody quite knows what to make of the OpenClaw mania sweeping China, marked by viral photos of retirees lining up for installation events and users gathering in red claw hats. The queues and cosplay inspired by the “raising a lobster” trend make for irresistible China clickbait. However, the West is fixating on the least important part of the story. As a consumer craze, OpenClaw — the AI agent designed to do tasks on a user’s behalf — would likely burn out. Without some developer background, it is too glitchy and technically awkward for true mainstream adoption,
Taiwan-South Korea relations face a critical test, as a deadline forces both sides to confront a long-simmering issue. Taipei has requested that Seoul correct its classification of Taiwan in South Korea’s e-arrival system, where it has been labeled as “China (Taiwan)” since Feb. 24 last year. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs set today as a clear deadline for revision, warning that failure to act would trigger reciprocal measures beginning tomorrow. Taipei has already signaled its willingness to respond. Beginning on March 1, the government changed the designation of South Koreans on the alien resident certificates from the “Republic of Korea” to “South
Out of 64 participating universities in this year’s Stars Program — through which schools directly recommend their top students to universities for admission — only 19 filled their admissions quotas. There were 922 vacancies, down more than 200 from last year; top universities had 37 unfilled places, 40 fewer than last year. The original purpose of the Stars Program was to expand admissions to a wider range of students. However, certain departments at elite universities that failed to meet their admissions quotas are not improving. Vacancies at top universities are linked to students’ program preferences on their applications, but inappropriate admission
On Monday, a group of bipartisan US senators arrived in Taiwan to support the nation’s special defense bill to counter Chinese threats. At the same time, Beijing announced that Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) had invited Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) to visit China, a move to make the KMT a pawn in its proxy warfare against Taiwan and the US. Since her inauguration as KMT chair last year, Cheng, widely seen as a pro-China figure, has made no secret of her desire to interact with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and meet with Xi, naming it a
RSS