Restaurants, night market food vendors and food courts in Taipei, New Taipei City and Yilan County can accept dine-in customers from today, provided that they strictly adhere to disease prevention regulations.
Restaurants elsewhere in Taiwan resumed dine-in services on Tuesday last week when the Central Epidemic Command Center lowered the COVID-19 alert to level 2.
Taipei and New Taipei City cooperated on the decision to lift the dine-in ban as residents frequently travel between the two cities, New Taipei City Mayor Hou You-yi (侯友宜) said yesterday.
Photo: Peter Lo, Taipei Times
The Yilan County Government later yesterday also announced it would lift the ban from today.
However, Hou said that New Taipei City could reimpose the dine-in ban if the Delta variant of SARS-CoV-2 spreads or there is a surge in domestic cases, adding that people should wear masks in public places.
If a restaurant has workers or customers who contract the virus, it would be ordered to suspend operations for three days and would not be permitted to accept dine-in customers for 11 days after it resumes operations, Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) said.
Restaurants, night market food vendors and food courts in Taipei and New Taipei City should strictly adhere to disease prevention regulations, the two city governments said, adding that eateries should arrange checkerboard seating for diners or place partitions on tables.
Should dine-in customers wish to share their meals, service personnel should divide each dish into small portions before serving it to customers, they said.
The number of indoor customers should be capped at 50 and outdoor customers should be capped at 100.
If restaurants want to accommodate more customers, they must implement measures to separate customers, and ensure that they enter and exit separately, the Taipei City Government said, adding they must also seek approval from the Taipei Department of Health.
Dining areas should be adequately ventilated, with tables being at least 1.5m apart, and food service providers must monitor their health daily, it added.
Dine-in customers at night markets must not share food or eat at the counter, the New Taipei City Government said, adding that customers are banned from eating while walking or they would be fined NT$3,000 to NT$15,000.
Meanwhile, sports centers, gyms, the Bali Aquatics Center and the Jonjiao Bay Surf Center would also reopen today, but swimming pools and shower facilities would remained closed, the New Taipei City government said.
Shrimp fishing ponds and claw machine stores would also be allowed to reopen today, the city governments said.
RESPONSE: The transit sends a message that China’s alignment with other countries would not deter the West from defending freedom of navigation, an academic said Canadian frigate the Ville de Quebec and Australian guided-missile destroyer the Brisbane transited the Taiwan Strait yesterday morning, the first time the two nations have conducted a joint freedom of navigation operation. The Canadian and Australian militaries did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The Ministry of National Defense declined to confirm the passage, saying only that Taiwan’s armed forces had deployed surveillance and reconnaissance assets, along with warships and combat aircraft, to safeguard security across the Strait. The two vessels were observed transiting northward along the eastern side of the Taiwan Strait’s median line, with Japan being their most likely destination,
‘NOT ALONE’: A Taiwan Strait war would disrupt global trade routes, and could spark a worldwide crisis, so a powerful US presence is needed as a deterrence, a US senator said US Senator Deb Fischer on Thursday urged her colleagues in the US Congress to deepen Washington’s cooperation with Taiwan and other Indo-Pacific partners to contain the global security threat from China. Fischer and other lawmakers recently returned from an official trip to the Indo-Pacific region, where they toured US military bases in Hawaii and Guam, and visited leaders, including President William Lai (賴清德). The trip underscored the reality that the world is undergoing turmoil, and maintaining a free and open Indo-Pacific region is crucial to the security interests of the US and its partners, she said. Her visit to Taiwan demonstrated ways the
GLOBAL ISSUE: If China annexes Taiwan, ‘it will not stop its expansion there, as it only becomes stronger and has more force to expand further,’ the president said China’s military and diplomatic expansion is not a sole issue for Taiwan, but one that risks world peace, President William Lai (賴清德) said yesterday, adding that Taiwan would stand with the alliance of democratic countries to preserve peace through deterrence. Lai made the remark in an exclusive interview with the Chinese-language Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times). “China is strategically pushing forward to change the international order,” Lai said, adding that China established the Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank, launched the Belt and Road Initiative, and pushed for yuan internationalization, because it wants to replace the democratic rules-based international
RELEASED: Ko emerged from a courthouse before about 700 supporters, describing his year in custody as a period of ‘suffering’ and vowed to ‘not surrender’ Former Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) chairman Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) was released on NT$70 million (US$2.29 million) bail yesterday, bringing an end to his year-long incommunicado detention as he awaits trial on corruption charges. Under the conditions set by the Taipei District Court on Friday, Ko must remain at a registered address, wear a GPS-enabled ankle monitor and is prohibited from leaving the country. He is also barred from contacting codefendants or witnesses. After Ko’s wife, Peggy Chen (陳佩琪), posted bail, Ko was transported from the Taipei Detention Center to the Taipei District Court at 12:20pm, where he was fitted with the tracking
RSS