The Ministry of Education is distributing 6.45 million masks to schools from kindergarten to 12th grade (K-12), as well as after-school institutions as part of government efforts to contain the COVID-19 outbreak as the spring semester starts today.
As K-12 schools reopen after a two-week delay due to the outbreak, the ministry said that it is also providing them with 25,000 infrared thermometers and 84,000 liters of alcohol-based sanitizers.
Of the 6.45 million masks, 500,000 have been earmarked for private kindergartens, 770,000 for after-school tutoring institutions and childcare centers, and 5.18 million for K-12 schools, Department of Planning head Huang Wen-ling (黃雯玲) said on Sunday.
Photo: CNA
The masks are for “backup” purposes and should be used only in emergency situations, such as if a child or teacher develops a fever, cough, sore throat or respiratory symptoms, Huang added.
The thermometers are being distributed in two batches, with 12,500 units having been delivered as of yesterday and 12,500 more to be delivered by Monday next week, she said.
The distribution of 40,000 liters of alcohol-based sanitizers to private kindergartens and other institutions started on Feb. 10 and would be completed within three weeks, while another 44,000 liters are being distributed to schools over a three-week period that started on Monday last week, Huang said.
Most of the nation’s universities are to begin their spring semester on Monday next week after an extended break due to the coronavirus outbreak.
Considering that most countries issue more than five denominations of banknotes, the central bank has decided to redesign all five denominations, the bank said as it prepares for the first major overhaul of the banknotes in more than 24 years. Central bank Governor Yang Chin-lung (楊金龍) is expected to report to the Legislative Yuan today on the bank’s operations and the redesign’s progress. The bank in a report sent to the legislature ahead of today’s meeting said it had commissioned a survey on the public’s preferences. Survey results showed that NT$100 and NT$1,000 banknotes are the most commonly used, while NT$200 and NT$2,000
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) yesterday reported the first case of a new COVID-19 subvariant — BA.3.2 — in a 10-year-old Singaporean girl who had a fever upon arrival in Taiwan and tested positive for the disease. The girl left Taiwan on March 20 and the case did not have a direct impact on the local community, it said. The WHO added the BA.3.2 strain to its list of Variants Under Monitoring in December last year, but this was the first imported case of the COVID-19 variant in Taiwan, CDC Deputy Director-General Lin Ming-cheng (林明誠) said. The girl arrived in Taiwan on
South Korea is planning to revise its controversial electronic arrival card, a step Taiwanese officials said prompted them to hold off on planned retaliatory measures, a South Korean media report said yesterday. A Yonhap News Agency report said that the South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs is planning to remove the “previous departure place” and “next destination” fields from its e-arrival card system. The plan, reached after interagency consultations, is under review and aims to simplify entry procedures and align the electronic form with the paper version, a South Korean ministry official said. The fields — which appeared only on the electronic form
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) is suspending retaliation measures against South Korea that were set to take effect tomorrow, after Seoul said it is updating its e-arrival system, MOFA said today. The measures were to be a new round of retaliation after Taiwan on March 1 changed South Korea's designation on government-issued alien resident certificates held by South Korean nationals to "South Korea” from the "Republic of Korea," the country’s official name. The move came after months of protests to Seoul over its listing of Taiwan as "China (Taiwan)" in dropdown menus on its new online immigration entry system. MOFA last week
RSS