The government is to establish a dedicated center to improve disease prevention, injecting NT$4 billion (US$132.88 million) over the next seven years into the project, Executive Yuan spokeswoman Kolas Yotaka said yesterday.
Premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) on Wednesday approved a Ministry of Health and Welfare proposal to build a center for disease prevention, which is to be in the ministry’s compounds in Taipei’s Nangang District (南港), with construction scheduled to begin next year and be completed in 2027, Kolas said.
The center would fight known viruses and communicable diseases, with key tasks including inspection efforts, and research and development of vaccines and biopharmaceuticals, Kolas said, adding that it would also serve as a hub to ration out goods during epidemics.
Photo: George Tsorng, Taipei Times
Starting next year, costs would be included in annual funds for general public affairs, Kolas said, adding that no special funds would be used for the project.
In other developments, a Cabinet official said that from Wednesday next week, people would be able to preorder their two-weekly quota of masks at the nation’s four major convenience store chains.
People would be able to preorder masks every two weeks at FamilyMart, 7-Eleven, OK Mart and Hi-Life convenience stores using their National Health Insurance (NHI) cards, the official said.
They would also be able to have masks delivered to Pxmart or Simple Mart outlets, but the supermarket chains cannot take orders, as they do not have NHI card readers, the official said.
Payment methods for the store system have yet to be determined, the official said.
Convenience store services are expected to ease congestion at NHI-affiliated pharmacies, where people usually have to wait in long lines to buy masks.
The Cabinet official said that 240 of the more than 6,000 designated pharmacies have asked to withdraw from the program because they do not have enough staff to handle daily sales.
Since the mask rationing program started on Jan. 31, the quota for each person has been increased from two to three per seven days and then to nine per 14 days, with the sales platform expanding from pharmacies to a government Web site and a mobile app.
The Ministry of Transportation and Communications yesterday inaugurated the Danjiang Bridge across the Tamsui River in New Taipei City, saying that the structure would be an architectural icon and traffic artery for Taiwan. Feted as a major engineering achievement, the Danjiang Bridge is 920m long, 211m tall at the top of its pylon, and is the longest single-pylon asymmetric cable-stayed bridge in the world, the government’s Web site for the structure said. It was designed by late Iraqi-British architect Zaha Hadid. The structure, with a maximum deck of 70m, accommodates road and light rail traffic, and affords a 200m navigation channel for boats,
PRECISION STRIKES: The most significant reason to deploy HIMARS to outlying islands is to establish a ‘dead zone’ that the PLA would not dare enter, a source said A High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) would be deployed to Penghu County and Dongyin Island (東引) in Lienchiang County (Matsu) to force the Chinese military to retreat at least 100km from the coastline, a military source said yesterday. Taiwan has been procuring HIMARS and Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) from the US in batches. Once all batches have been delivered, Taiwan would possess 111 HIMARS units and 504 ATACMS, which have a range of 300km. Considering that “offense is the best defense,” the military plans to forward-deploy the systems to outlying islands such as Penghu and Dongyin so that
WHAT WAS ALL THAT FOR? Jaw Shaw-kong said that Cheng Li-wen had pushed for more drastic cuts and attacked him, just for the outcome to be nearly identical to his bill The legislature yesterday passed a supplementary budget bill to fund the purchase of separate packages of US military equipment, with the combined amount of spending capped at NT$780 billion (US$24.8 billion). The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) used their legislative majority to pass the bill, which runs until 2033 and has two main funding provisions. One was for NT$300 billion of arms sales already approved by the US for Taiwan on Dec. 17 last year, the other was for NT$480 billion for another arms package expected to be announced by Washington. The bill, which fell short of the NT$1.25
‘CLEAR MESSAGE’: The bill would set up an interagency ‘tiger team’ to review sanctions tools and other economic options to help deter any Chinese aggression toward Taiwan US Representative Young Kim has introduced a bill to deter Chinese aggression against Taiwan, calling for an interagency “tiger team” to preplan coordinated sanctions and economic measures in response to possible Chinese military or political action against Taiwan. “[Chinese President] Xi Jinping [習近平] has directed the People’s Liberation Army to be ready to invade Taiwan by 2027. China has a plan. America should have one too,” Kim said in a news release on Thursday last week. She introduced the “Deter PRC [People’s Republic of China] aggression against Taiwan act” to “ensure the US has a coordinated sanctions strategy ready should
RSS