Taitung County has failed to provide Orchid Island (Lanyu, 蘭嶼) with guidance regarding disease- prevention efforts, members of the Tao community in the township said, while also calling for a ban on tourists.
Lanyu Elementary School dean Syamen Womzas on Wednesday said that the township office should refuse visitors for the time being.
The Philippines’ Bataan Province on the island of Luzon has already restricted access, he wrote on Facebook.
Photo: CNA
“It is not a choice between money or our lives, it is how we address the issue,” Womzas said.
Womzas said the island has always lacked adequate medical resources and would be greatly affected if COVID-19 were to spread on the island.
Only civil servants and Orchid Island residents should be permitted to enter or leave the island, he said.
Lanyu Township Mayor Chiaman Chialamu said that the Tao community was worried and had asked that authorities at ports and airports take visitors’ temperatures.
However, the township office only had two forehead thermometers, which was only enough to satisfy the township office’s needs, Chialamu said.
Taitung County should provide the island with epidemic-prevention equipment, Chialamu said, adding that even though the county had three COVID-19 cases in home quarantine, it had not given the township any instructions or advice.
Taitung County Public Health Bureau Director Huang Ming-en (黃明恩) said that the county was also short on thermometers and Lanyu Township would have to purchase its own.
Huang said that he would provide the township office with a list of vendors for reference.
In related news, three people — from the US, Australia and India — attempted to enter the country by sailing into Houbihu (後壁胡) in Pingtung County’s Kenting (墾丁) area, hours before the ban on foreigners entering the country went into effect yesterday.
After confirming that they did not have symptoms of COVID-19, the Centers for Disease Control allowed them to enter the country, but asked them to perform self-health management.
They had been visiting Taiwan for more than two weeks as of Thursday last week, and were attempting to visit the Philippines, but when they were refused entry there, they returned to Taiwan, the Pingtung County Public Health Bureau said yesterday.
The Pingtung County Government said that as of Wednesday, it had two people in home quarantine and 150 in home isolation.
The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) today condemned the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) after the Czech officials confirmed that Chinese agents had surveilled Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) during her visit to Prague in March last year. Czech Military Intelligence director Petr Bartovsky yesterday said that Chinese operatives had attempted to create the conditions to carry out a demonstrative incident involving Hsiao, going as far as to plan a collision with her car. Hsiao was vice president-elect at the time. The MAC said that it has requested an explanation and demanded a public apology from Beijing. The CCP has repeatedly ignored the desires
Many Chinese spouses required to submit proof of having renounced their Chinese household registration have either completed the process or provided affidavits ahead of the June 30 deadline, the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said on Thursday. Of the 12,146 people required to submit the proof, 5,534 had done so as of Wednesday, MAC deputy head and spokesperson Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) said. Another 2,572 people who met conditions for exemption or deferral from submitting proof of deregistration — such as those with serious illnesses or injuries — have submitted affidavits instead, he said. “As long as individuals are willing to cooperate with the legal
The Ma-anshan Nuclear Power Plant’s license has expired and it cannot simply be restarted, the Executive Yuan said today, ahead of national debates on the nuclear power referendum. The No. 2 reactor at the Ma-anshan Nuclear Power Plant in Pingtung County was disconnected from the nation’s power grid and completely shut down on May 17, the day its license expired. The government would prioritize people’s safety and conduct necessary evaluations and checks if there is a need to extend the service life of the reactor, Executive Yuan spokeswoman Michelle Lee (李慧芝) told a news conference. Lee said that the referendum would read: “Do
The Ministry of Environment yesterday held a seminar in Taipei for experts from Taiwan and Japan to exchange their experiences on the designs and development of public toilets. Japan Toilet Association chairman Kohei Yamamoto said that he was impressed with the eco-toilet set up at Daan Forest Park, adding that Japan still faces issues regarding public restrooms despite the progress it made over the past decades. For example, an all-gender toilet was set up in Kabukicho in Tokyo’s Shinjuku District several years ago, but it caused a public backlash and was rebuilt into traditional men’s and women’s toilets, he said. Japan Toilet Association
RSS