Starting today, eating and drinking in Taipei movie theaters is to be banned as the city government seeks to bolster its disease prevention measures.
Movie theaters may continue to sell food and beverages, but customers cannot consume them on the premises, Taipei Deputy Mayor Tsai Ping-kun (蔡炳坤) said.
The ban aims to ensure that people keep their masks on at all times when watching a movie, as they would be in close proximity to others inside a movie theater, he added.
Photo: Tsai Shu-yuan, Taipei Times
The new measure does not mean the COVID-19 alert level was being raised and it only aims to adjust precautions at movie theaters, Taipei Department of Information and Tourism Commissioner Liu Yi-ting (劉奕霆) said.
“Customers can still buy snacks and beverages, and eat them outside the theater hall while waiting for the movie to start,” he said.
There have been recent cases with unknown infection sources, so the city has been looking at measures to improve public safety, he added.
Offenders would not be fined for now, Tsai said, calling on the public and theaters to cooperate.
Tsai said the city would later this week reopen its online vaccine appointment Web site to finish off a stock of 80,000 doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine.
People can make appointments on the Web site on Friday and Saturday, he said, adding that vaccinations would begin on Monday.
Walk-in vaccination sites, such as the one in Taipei Railway Station, stopped work on Thursday for the Lunar New Year holiday, and would resume service on Monday next week, offering 600 doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech and the AstraZeneca vaccine each every day.
Meanwhile, the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) yesterday reported 17 domestic and 38 imported COVID-19 cases.
As 10 of the domestic cases tested positive during quarantine after being listed as close contacts of other confirmed cases, the spread of COVID-19 in Taiwan remains under control, said Centers for Disease Control Deputy Director-General Chuang Jen-hsiang (莊人祥), the CECC’s spokesman.
Sixteen of the new local cases were linked to previously reported clusters in Taoyuan, Kaohsiung, the greater Taipei area and Yilan County, while the source of one case, who was confirmed in Kaohsiung, but had recently been to New Taipei City, is being investigated, the CECC said.
Eleven of the new cases were classified as breakthrough infections.
One had received one dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, while three, including one under the age of 10, have not been vaccinated.
The vaccination status of two cases is still being investigated, the CECC said.
EUROPEAN TARGETS: The planned Munich center would support TSMC’s European customers to design high-performance, energy-efficient chips, an executive said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday said that it plans to launch a new research-and-development (R&D) center in Munich, Germany, next quarter to assist customers with chip design. TSMC Europe president Paul de Bot made the announcement during a technology symposium in Amsterdam on Tuesday, the chipmaker said. The new Munich center would be the firm’s first chip designing center in Europe, it said. The chipmaker has set up a major R&D center at its base of operations in Hsinchu and plans to create a new one in the US to provide services for major US customers,
The Ministry of Transportation and Communications yesterday said that it would redesign the written portion of the driver’s license exam to make it more rigorous. “We hope that the exam can assess drivers’ understanding of traffic rules, particularly those who take the driver’s license test for the first time. In the past, drivers only needed to cram a book of test questions to pass the written exam,” Minister of Transportation and Communications Chen Shih-kai (陳世凱) told a news conference at the Taoyuan Motor Vehicle Office. “In the future, they would not be able to pass the test unless they study traffic regulations
‘A SURVIVAL QUESTION’: US officials have been urging the opposition KMT and TPP not to block defense spending, especially the special defense budget, an official said The US plans to ramp up weapons sales to Taiwan to a level exceeding US President Donald Trump’s first term as part of an effort to deter China as it intensifies military pressure on the nation, two US officials said on condition of anonymity. If US arms sales do accelerate, it could ease worries about the extent of Trump’s commitment to Taiwan. It would also add new friction to the tense US-China relationship. The officials said they expect US approvals for weapons sales to Taiwan over the next four years to surpass those in Trump’s first term, with one of them saying
‘COMING MENACINGLY’: The CDC advised wearing a mask when visiting hospitals or long-term care centers, on public transportation and in crowded indoor venues Hospital visits for COVID-19 last week increased by 113 percent to 41,402, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday, as it encouraged people to wear a mask in three public settings to prevent infection. CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said weekly hospital visits for COVID-19 have been increasing for seven consecutive weeks, and 102 severe COVID-19 cases and 19 deaths were confirmed last week, both the highest weekly numbers this year. CDC physician Lee Tsung-han (李宗翰) said the youngest person hospitalized due to the disease this year was reported last week, a one-month-old baby, who does not
RSS