CHARITY
Hospital raises NT$6m
Taiwanese have donated more than NT$6 million (US$197,968) to fight the COVID-19 outbreak in Italy, following an appeal for help on Wednesday by an Italian priest who has worked for more than 50 years building healthcare services in rural Taiwan. Catholic Father Giuseppe Didone issued a public letter asking for donations to the fundraising center of Camillian Saint Mary’s Hospital Luodong in Yilan County, which would be used to purchase emergency provisions, including masks and protective gowns, for medical personnel in Italy. The hospital said its fundraising deadline is April 15. Because of restrictions on the purchase and export of medical supplies, the Camillian order, which operates the hospital, said it is seeking permission to purchase the supplies locally and ship them to Italy. If that fails, the order said it would consider trying to purchase the products abroad.
HEALTH
Fast-food takes on virus
Fast-food restaurants have said they are taking additional precautions to stop the spread of COVID-19, in response to new social distancing guidelines announced on Tuesday by the Central Epidemic Command Center. KFC is encouraging people to use its “contact-free” pick-up and delivery option to reduce the risk of infection and is posting notices at its outlets of distancing guidelines. TKK Fried Chicken said it has asked employees to remind customers to stay at least 1.5m apart indoors. At McDonald’s locations, in-store and delivery workers are required to wear masks and wash their hands once per hour, and have been asked to voluntarily test and record their temperatures. MOS Burger employees are required to take their temperature before starting their shifts and to wear a face mask while on duty.
DIPLOMACY
US calls for WHA inclusion
The US Department of State on Friday called for Taiwan to receive observer status in the World Health Assembly (WHA), and said its model for fighting COVID-19 could benefit countries worldwide. “Taiwan is a leader in preventing the spread of COVID-19. The United States and Taiwan hope to share the Taiwan Model with countries around the world. Taiwan has a role to play in global health and should be a World Health Assembly observer,” the department’s Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs tweeted. On Monday, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said he would push for an “appropriate role” for Taiwan at the WHA, the policy-setting body of the WHO. On Tuesday, Taiwanese and US officials held a virtual forum to discuss efforts to reinstate Taiwan’s WHA observer status and to share the successful “Taiwan model” of containing COVID-19.
TOURISM
Arrivals drop significantly
The number of passengers arriving in Taiwan has continued to drop dramatically month-on-month due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the National Immigration Agency (NIA) said on Friday. The number of arrivals handled by airports and sea ports were 2,262,692 in January, 1,136,655 in February and 215,662 last month, when the government began to clamp down on travel, such as banning the entry of all foreign nationals with few exceptions from March 19. The number of daily arrivals last month averaged about 7,000, an NIA official said, adding that the figures for March 19 and March 20 were 6,511 and 5,607 respectively. International flights in and out of the nation’s airports have also declined.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching