The number of cases of COVID-19 in Taiwan has been rising for seven consecutive weeks, with the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) on Tuesday last week reporting that weekly hospital visits for the disease surged 113 percent in the previous week. The new wave of infections is likely to peak about the end of this month, it said. On Wednesday, CDC Director-General Chuang Jen-hsiang (莊人祥) reported to the legislature that weekly cases might rise to 200,000 during the peak period, with 1.7 million cases in total by early August.
Global COVID-19 activity has been increasing since mid-February, with the test positivity rate reaching 11 percent — a level that has not been observed since July last year, a WHO report released last week showed. That rise is primarily in a few regions, including the Western Pacific, it said.
The CDC has encouraged people to wear masks when visiting healthcare facilities or care centers, traveling on public transportation and visiting crowded indoor venues, and urged people with respiratory symptoms to minimize unnecessary outings, to reduce the risk of spreading or contracting the virus. Wearing a mask is especially important for older adults and those with weakened immune systems or chronic medical conditions, who are also advised to stay up to date on their COVID-19 vaccinations to reduce the risk of developing severe complications from infection, it said.
Although government data showed a rise in vaccine uptake in the past week, conflicting messages have sown confusion, such as US Secretary of Health Robert F. Kennedy Jr, a prominent vaccine skeptic, announcing that the US CDC would no longer recommend that healthy children and pregnant women receive a COVID-19 vaccine. His directive skipped the traditional decisionmaking process of independent experts voting in the US Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices (ACIP), raising concerns among healthcare providers, US media reported.
In response to the US COVID-19 vaccine policy, Minister of Health and Welfare Chiu Tai-yuan (邱泰源) and CDC officials on Wednesday told the legislature that the independent experts on the ministry’s ACIP would discuss the eligibility of government-funded vaccination for the autumn-winter season this month.
Taiwan Counter Contagious Diseases Society chairman Wang Jen-hsien (王任賢) on Thursday told a Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) news conference that the public has already received enough vaccine shots, adding that the numbers of severe COVID-19 cases and deaths were exaggerated, and mild COVID-19 cases should not have access to antiviral drugs. The next day, CDC Deputy Director-General Philip Lo (羅一鈞) disputed Wang’s claims, describing his statements as “a dangerous suggestion” that is totally different from health experts’ and might also “mislead the public and harm their health.” Studies have proven that getting updated booster shots can effectively reduce the risk of hospitalization, severe illness and death, particularly for older adults, Lo said. He added that Wang’s speculations were “preposterous and misleading,” as case numbers were reported by hospitals according to the law, and infected people in high-risk groups with mild symptoms are still eligible for COVID-19 antiviral drugs.
The CDC and most health experts have been careful to base their health suggestions on scientific evidence, but their efforts can easily be undermined by deliberate political interference or misinformation, such as KMT claims that the government “blocked” vaccine imports and “hid” information from the public during the pandemic and elections. Wang’s suggestion was also dangerous, as it did not consider the different health risks among individuals. The irresponsible politicization of public health issues erodes public trust in science and healthcare professionals, potentially rendering public health policies less effective, and putting people’s health and lives at risk.
On May 7, 1971, Henry Kissinger planned his first, ultra-secret mission to China and pondered whether it would be better to meet his Chinese interlocutors “in Pakistan where the Pakistanis would tape the meeting — or in China where the Chinese would do the taping.” After a flicker of thought, he decided to have the Chinese do all the tape recording, translating and transcribing. Fortuitously, historians have several thousand pages of verbatim texts of Dr. Kissinger’s negotiations with his Chinese counterparts. Paradoxically, behind the scenes, Chinese stenographers prepared verbatim English language typescripts faster than they could translate and type them
More than 30 years ago when I immigrated to the US, applied for citizenship and took the 100-question civics test, the one part of the naturalization process that left the deepest impression on me was one question on the N-400 form, which asked: “Have you ever been a member of, involved in or in any way associated with any communist or totalitarian party anywhere in the world?” Answering “yes” could lead to the rejection of your application. Some people might try their luck and lie, but if exposed, the consequences could be much worse — a person could be fined,
Taiwan aims to elevate its strategic position in supply chains by becoming an artificial intelligence (AI) hub for Nvidia Corp, providing everything from advanced chips and components to servers, in an attempt to edge out its closest rival in the region, South Korea. Taiwan’s importance in the AI ecosystem was clearly reflected in three major announcements Nvidia made during this year’s Computex trade show in Taipei. First, the US company’s number of partners in Taiwan would surge to 122 this year, from 34 last year, according to a slide shown during CEO Jensen Huang’s (黃仁勳) keynote speech on Monday last week.
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