The Taiwan Railways Administration (TRA) has moved up plans to start taking the temperatures of passengers at some of its bigger stations to Wednesday next week after Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers criticized it for not planning to start such a program until mid-May.
DPP legislators Lai Hui-yuan (賴惠員), Huang Kuo-shu (黃國書), Wang Mei-hui (王美惠) and Huang Shih-chieh (黃世杰) yesterday questioned why the TRA was waiting until the middle of May to take the temperature of all passengers, when the Taiwan High Speed Rail Corp (THSRC) began doing so as of the middle of this month.
They urged the agency to move faster so that it would not become a loophole in the nation’s disease-prevention network.
The agency later announced that people wanting to enter all 34 of its special-class and first-class stations must have their temperatures taken first as of Wednesday.
It has 241 stations nationwide, and it is not easy to acquire thermometers these days, although it placed orders for them last month, the agency said.
It is also recruiting people with nursing or healthcare backgrounds to take people’s temperatures at 20 large stations, it added.
With the help of the Central Epidemic Command Center, it plans to implement the temperature-taking in phases, it said.
Of the 34 stations that would begin taking temperatures next week, 22 would use infrared imaging and 12 would use forehead thermometers, with the goal of measuring about 70 percent of the passengers accessing the stations, it said.
“We would quickly implement the same requirement at the rest of our stations, but the progress depends on whether we have enough forehead thermometers and if we have enough personnel to do so,” it said, adding that it aims for the policy to be implemented at all stations by April 30.
People who have a temperature of at least 37.5°C would be measured a second time, and if the reading is the same, they would be asked to return home or seek medical attention, it said.
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