Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) yesterday said that the disease prevention measures implemented in the next week would be critical in determining how the nation’s COVID-19 situation develops.
Ko made the remark on the sidelines of a launch event for Cherish Food Taiwan’s Cherish Food Kitchen, which is to provide 300 free hot boxed lunches each day to frontline healthcare professionals at seven hospitals in Taipei and New Taipei City.
The association said that it collects unconsumed ingredients to make the meals and gives them to elderly people who are in need.
Photo: Wang Yi-sung, Taipei Times
It established the new kitchen to expand its capacity during the COVID-19 outbreak and would provide meals to frontline medical professionals from Monday to Friday for three months, it said.
The seven hospitals are: New Taipei City Hospital’s Sanchong and Banciao branches, the Ministry of Health and Welfare’s Taipei Hospital and Shuang Ho Hospital, Taipei Municipal Wanfang Hospital, Shinkong Wu Ho-su Memorial Hospital, and Taipei City Hospital’s Chung Hsin Branch.
“In my opinion, the upcoming week is the most dangerous period [for Taiwan], as the reported cases have increased by about 20 every day,” he said. “If we can keep it under control and reduce the numbers, then we can pass the second wave [of imported cases], but if there is a loophole, the situation will be horrible.”
New Taipei City Mayor Hou You-yi (侯友宜) said that no one knows when the battle against COVID-19 will end, so everyone should play their part, like members of a baseball team.
In addition to cooperating with the central government, local governments must also cooperate, just as Taipei provided the building for the Cherish Food Kitchen and New Taipei City provided the ingredients, so that meals could be provided to hospitals in both cities, he said.
OVERHAUL NEEDED: The government should improve its agricultural processing capabilities and expand to new markets to limit its reliance on China, an expert said China’s ban on Taiwanese pineapples was “unsurprising,” and Taiwan should have years ago altered its produce export strategies and target customers, experts said. China on Friday abruptly suspended imports of pineapples from Taiwan, saying that it had on multiple occasions discovered “harmful biological entities” on the fruit. Calling it an “unfriendly” move, the Council of Agriculture (COA) said that 99.79 percent of the pineapples sent to China since last year have met China’s import standards. Chiao Chun (焦鈞), the author of Fruits and Politics — A Recollection of Cross-strait Agricultural Interaction Over the Past Decade (水果政治學：兩岸農業交流十年回顧與展望), said that China’s announcement is clearly targeting
The Council of Agriculture yesterday signed a Taiwan-Australia Agricultural Cooperation Implementation clause to open a new export market for the nation’s pineapple crop. The clause is an addition to existing cooperation measures, it said. China on Friday last week abruptly announced that it would suspend pineapple imports from Taiwan starting on Monday, on grounds that it had on multiple occasions discovered “harmful organisms” in shipments of the fruit. The public and private sectors have since joined hands to purchase the local fruit to help the nation’s pineapple farmers. Canberra has requested that all pineapples for export to Australia have their crown buds removed,
DECADES OF INFLUENCE: Over the past 20 years, China has made inroads with Aborigines, funding political campaigns and trips, a legislator said Lawmakers have called on the National Security Bureau to investigate claims of pervasive Chinese influence among Aboriginal communities. Legislators pointed to a surge in communist propaganda and Chinese-funded projects over the past few years, which they say are aimed at infiltrating and buying political influence among Aboriginal communities. “China has for decades carried out wide-ranging ‘united front’ tactics and propaganda campaigns targeting Aborigines,” said Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Chen Ying (陳瑩), a member of the Puyuma community in Taitung County. “Now, they are influencing elections for local councilors and village chiefs, offering money for candidates to mount their campaigns, and to
DISSATISFACTION? If the referendums collect more than 700,000 signatures each, they would have gotten the most signatures in the shortest time, the party said The Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) two referendum petitions — one on banning the importation of pork with traces of ractopamine and the other on holding referendums on the same day as national elections — had as of Thursday gathered 691,398 and 674,497 signatures respectively, the party said yesterday. If the petitions collect more than 700,000 signatures apiece, they would have garnered the most signatures in the shortest time since the Referendum Act (公民投票法) was amended in 2017, party officials said. The KMT proposed the “anti-ractopamine pork” or “food safety” referendum just days after President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) announcement on Aug. 28 last
RSS