Most schools across Taiwan reopened for the new semester as planned on Friday, despite concerns about the local spread of the Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2. Only Kaohsiung and Taoyuan postponed reopening preschools to tomorrow, and Kaohsiung on Thursday announced that elementary schools would delay their start to tomorrow as well, due to concerns over a few local cluster infections.
Among the six special municipalities, five have announced that schools would be closed for 14 days if a faculty member or student is diagnosed with COVID-19, a stricter standard than the Ministry of Education’s guidelines.
Keelung, Hsinchu City, Hsinchu County and Yunlin have also adopted stricter standards.
The ministry’s guidelines state that a class in which a faculty member or student is diagnosed with COVID-19 should be suspended for 14 days; the entire school should be closed for two weeks if it has two or more faculty members or students confirmed with COVID-19; and schools with any confirmed cases should suspend all major events.
Local media have cited health experts expressing different views, including that the ministry’s guidelines were carefully discussed and took into consideration the effect on students and their families, as parents might need to take unpaid disease prevention childcare leave, and that the ranges of class suspensions could be decided based on testing and contact tracing.
The WHO’s Regional Office for Europe in October last year called for schools to stay open, and use disease prevention and response measures, saying school closures the year before had disrupted the education of millions of students and did more harm than good, especially to children’s mental health and social well-being.
Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中), who heads the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC), said that suspending an entire school for two weeks would be “too harsh.”
The education ministry on Thursday said it respects the local governments’ enhanced disease prevention measures, but “suspending classes should not mean suspending education.” Schools must prepare for remote learning or make up missed lessons on weekends or after school.
The inconsistent policies among local governments can be confusing to the public, especially when their own policies reflect conflicting values.
Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) on Wednesday said that more than 400 people were ordered to isolate due to one confirmed case, and only one case of moderately severe COVID-19 was reported in Taiwan this year. However, more than 20,000 people have been placed in isolation. Ko wondered if the social costs are bearable.
He suggested that aside from disease prevention, the need for social relief, economic stimulus and transformation must be considered, and restrictions should be loosened for people who have been vaccinated. Therefore, the city is to start easing restrictions, including allowing school field trips and graduation trips, from Tuesday if COVID-19 remains under control.
The city government’s attitude seems ambiguous, as it calls for eased restrictions to reduce the enormous social costs from contact tracing and isolation despite its tighter school suspension standard.
While the CECC said that domestic restrictions and border controls could be loosened as soon as next month, it is important for government agencies to make consistent decisions based on scientific data and evidence, while communicating and reassuring the public about changes through clear messaging, rather than leaving them more anxious and confused.
In their recent op-ed “Trump Should Rein In Taiwan” in Foreign Policy magazine, Christopher Chivvis and Stephen Wertheim argued that the US should pressure President William Lai (賴清德) to “tone it down” to de-escalate tensions in the Taiwan Strait — as if Taiwan’s words are more of a threat to peace than Beijing’s actions. It is an old argument dressed up in new concern: that Washington must rein in Taipei to avoid war. However, this narrative gets it backward. Taiwan is not the problem; China is. Calls for a so-called “grand bargain” with Beijing — where the US pressures Taiwan into concessions
The term “assassin’s mace” originates from Chinese folklore, describing a concealed weapon used by a weaker hero to defeat a stronger adversary with an unexpected strike. In more general military parlance, the concept refers to an asymmetric capability that targets a critical vulnerability of an adversary. China has found its modern equivalent of the assassin’s mace with its high-altitude electromagnetic pulse (HEMP) weapons, which are nuclear warheads detonated at a high altitude, emitting intense electromagnetic radiation capable of disabling and destroying electronics. An assassin’s mace weapon possesses two essential characteristics: strategic surprise and the ability to neutralize a core dependency.
Chinese President and Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Chairman Xi Jinping (習近平) said in a politburo speech late last month that his party must protect the “bottom line” to prevent systemic threats. The tone of his address was grave, revealing deep anxieties about China’s current state of affairs. Essentially, what he worries most about is systemic threats to China’s normal development as a country. The US-China trade war has turned white hot: China’s export orders have plummeted, Chinese firms and enterprises are shutting up shop, and local debt risks are mounting daily, causing China’s economy to flag externally and hemorrhage internally. China’s
During the “426 rally” organized by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Taiwan People’s Party under the slogan “fight green communism, resist dictatorship,” leaders from the two opposition parties framed it as a battle against an allegedly authoritarian administration led by President William Lai (賴清德). While criticism of the government can be a healthy expression of a vibrant, pluralistic society, and protests are quite common in Taiwan, the discourse of the 426 rally nonetheless betrayed troubling signs of collective amnesia. Specifically, the KMT, which imposed 38 years of martial law in Taiwan from 1949 to 1987, has never fully faced its
RSS