The government has donated 500,000 masks to Canada, while at least 120,000 Taiwanese have joined a humanitarian aid initiative by donating their share of masks to other countries through a mobile application to help them contain the COVID-19 pandemic.
Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs Miguel Tsao (曹立傑) handed over the donations to Canadian Trade Office in Taipei Executive Director Jordan Reeves at a ceremony in Taipei on Wednesday last week, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a news release yesterday.
The masks are to be to distributed to front-line healthcare workers and First Nations peoples, with 400,000 going to the Canadian government, 50,000 to Ontario, and 25,000 each to Alberta and British Columbia, it said.
Photo taken from the Canadian Trade Office in Taipei's Facebook page
The Canadian government last week said that about 1 million KN95 respirators — which it considered a viable alternative to N95 masks — purchased from China failed to meet the required filtering standards and would not be distributed to healthcare workers, the Globe and Mail reported on Thursday last week.
Excluding the gift to Canada, Taiwan this month has donated more than 18 million masks to 15 diplomatic allies, the US, 19 European nations, countries targeted by the government’s New Southbound Policy, Latin America and Caribbean countries, and Japan.
In addition, at least 120,000 Taiwanese have agreed to donate their unused share of masks — nine adult masks or 10 children’s masks per 14 days — to other countries through a mobile app, Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中) said yesterday.
The app, developed by the National Health Insurance Administration, allows members of the public to make the donation by clicking “respond to humanitarian aid” on the app, which Chen, who heads the Central Epidemic Command Center, unveiled on Monday.
Taiwan now produces nearly 17 million masks per day, up from a daily output of 1.8 million in January, 3.2 million in February, 10 million in the middle of last month and 15 million at the beginning of this month, Ministry of Economic Affairs data showed.
Daily production is expected to reach 19 million in about two weeks after the government conscripts 22 more mask production lines from the private sector, Minister of Economic Affairs Shen Jong-chin (沈榮津) said yesterday.
President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) has said that daily mask production could reach 20 million.
While the price of melt-blown nonwoven fabric — the key material used in making medical masks — in other countries has jumped to 10 times higher than that before the pandemic, the economics ministry said it has more than 19 tonnes of such fabric every day to support the daily production of nearly 20 million masks.
DEFENDING DEMOCRACY: Taiwan shares the same values as those that fought in WWII, and nations must unite to halt the expansion of a new authoritarian bloc, Lai said The government yesterday held a commemoration ceremony for Victory in Europe (V-E) Day, joining the rest of the world for the first time to mark the anniversary of the end of World War II in Europe. Taiwan honoring V-E Day signifies “our growing connections with the international community,” President William Lai (賴清德) said at a reception in Taipei on the 80th anniversary of V-E Day. One of the major lessons of World War II is that “authoritarianism and aggression lead only to slaughter, tragedy and greater inequality,” Lai said. Even more importantly, the war also taught people that “those who cherish peace cannot
STEADFAST FRIEND: The bills encourage increased Taiwan-US engagement and address China’s distortion of UN Resolution 2758 to isolate Taiwan internationally The Presidential Office yesterday thanked the US House of Representatives for unanimously passing two Taiwan-related bills highlighting its solid support for Taiwan’s democracy and global participation, and for deepening bilateral relations. One of the bills, the Taiwan Assurance Implementation Act, requires the US Department of State to periodically review its guidelines for engagement with Taiwan, and report to the US Congress on the guidelines and plans to lift self-imposed limitations on US-Taiwan engagement. The other bill is the Taiwan International Solidarity Act, which clarifies that UN Resolution 2758 does not address the issue of the representation of Taiwan or its people in
US Indo-Pacific Commander Admiral Samuel Paparo on Friday expressed concern over the rate at which China is diversifying its military exercises, the Financial Times (FT) reported on Saturday. “The rates of change on the depth and breadth of their exercises is the one non-linear effect that I’ve seen in the last year that wakes me up at night or keeps me up at night,” Paparo was quoted by FT as saying while attending the annual Sedona Forum at the McCain Institute in Arizona. Paparo also expressed concern over the speed with which China was expanding its military. While the US
‘FALLACY’: Xi’s assertions that Taiwan was given to the PRC after WWII confused right and wrong, and were contrary to the facts, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said The Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday called Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) claim that China historically has sovereignty over Taiwan “deceptive” and “contrary to the facts.” In an article published on Wednesday in the Russian state-run Rossiyskaya Gazeta, Xi said that this year not only marks 80 years since the end of World War II and the founding of the UN, but also “Taiwan’s restoration to China.” “A series of instruments with legal effect under international law, including the Cairo Declaration and the Potsdam Declaration have affirmed China’s sovereignty over Taiwan,” Xi wrote. “The historical and legal fact” of these documents, as well
RSS