The Ministry of Transportation and Communications yesterday outlined travel guidelines for long weekends to prevent cluster infections of COVID-19 and said that it would officially declare them soon.
Some have suggested that the government either cancel the International Workers’ Day long weekend from May 1 to 3 or impose a domestic travel ban, after many travelers failed to observe “social distancing” rules recommended by the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) — 1.5m in outdoor areas and 1m while indoors — during the Tomb Sweeping Day long weekend.
Others have suggested that the government target 11 popular travel destinations with text messages reminding people to practice social distancing.
Photo: Tsai Tsung-hsien, Taipei Times
The government has realized the importance of crowd control at outdoor events and regards it as a disease prevention challenge following the Tomb Sweeping holiday, Deputy Minister of Transportation and Communications Chi Wen-chung (祁文中) said in an interview at the Legislative Yuan.
Following the gathering of large crowds during the long weekend, the public is concerned whether the COVID-19 situation would worsen, he said.
Giving an example, Chi said that how to properly disinfect facilities at night markets remains an issue, as visitors are likely to take off their masks and walk while eating.
The ministry and the CECC have jointly stipulated general principles governing the size of crowds in scenic areas, travel destinations and hotels, Chi said.
Specifically, safe capacity at amusement parks would be lowered to 50 percent of their maximum capacity during the nation’s disease prevention period, he said.
At certain popular theme parks, the public would be warned against visiting the venues if they reach their safe capacity, he added.
If the number of visitors at a theme park reaches 55 percent of its maximum capacity, the management would have to start limiting foot traffic, Chi said.
The managements of outdoor scenic areas can start restricting the entry of vehicles to parking facilities if the number of parked vehicles reach 50 percent of the facility’s capacity, he said.
If a scenic area can accommodate more than 100 people at a time, the management can also set a daily limit on the number of visitors and ask people to make reservations in advance, he added.
Visitors to indoor facilities would be asked to enter and exit venues from a single point of access, Chi said.
If the number of visitors inside a venue reach 50 percent of capacity, people would be required to visit during different hours of the day, he said.
As travel destinations are overseen by different government agencies, each agency would have to set its own criteria to regulate the entry of visitors, Chi said.
In other developments, the Tourism Bureau yesterday said that it would extend a policy that bans travel agencies from organizing overseas trips or hosting international tourists until May 31 in view of the rising number of COVID-19 cases at home and overseas.
Meanwhile, Taoyuan International Airport Corp said that it is considering closing one of the two terminals at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport for renovation after the number of travelers using the facility dropped to less than 1,000 per day, the lowest since the airport opened 41 years ago.
The airport company estimated that closing Terminal 1 would affect 250 weekly flights, while 400 weekly flights would be affected if Terminal 2 is closed.
Chi said that the company would brief ministry officials about its assessment of the situation, but added that it has to address several issues first.
It has to consider how airplanes would share the use of airport facilities if there is only one terminal available and how much time it would have to finish the renovation, which would depend on when the pandemic would slow, he said.
“If the disease ends sooner than expected, can [a single] terminal handle the rapid surge in travelers?” he asked.
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
REVENGE TRAVEL: A surge in ticket prices should ease this year, but inflation would likely keep tickets at a higher price than before the pandemic Scoot is to offer six additional flights between Singapore and Northeast Asia, with all routes transiting Taipei from April 1, as the budget airline continues to resume operations that were paused during the COVID-19 pandemic, a Scoot official said on Thursday. Vice president of sales Lee Yong Sin (李榮新) said at a gathering with reporters in Taipei that the number of flights from Singapore to Japan and South Korea with a stop in Taiwan would increase from 15 to 21 each week. That change means the number of the Singapore-Taiwan-Tokyo flights per week would increase from seven to 12, while Singapore-Taiwan-Seoul
POOR PREPARATION: Cultures can form on food that is out of refrigeration for too long and cooking does not reliably neutralize their toxins, an epidemiologist said Medical professionals yesterday said that suspected food poisoning deaths revolving around a restaurant at Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 Store in Taipei could have been caused by one of several types of bacterium. Ho Mei-shang (何美鄉), an epidemiologist at Academia Sinica’s Institute of Biomedical Sciences, wrote on Facebook that the death of a 39-year-old customer of the restaurant suggests the toxin involved was either “highly potent or present in massive large quantities.” People who ate at the restaurant showed symptoms within hours of consuming the food, suggesting that the poisoning resulted from contamination by a toxin and not infection of the
BAD NEIGHBORS: China took fourth place among countries spreading disinformation, with Hong Kong being used as a hub to spread propaganda, a V-Dem study found Taiwan has been rated as the country most affected by disinformation for the 11th consecutive year in a study by the global research project Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem). The nation continues to be a target of disinformation originating from China, and Hong Kong is increasingly being used as a base from which to disseminate that disinformation, the report said. After Taiwan, Latvia and Palestine ranked second and third respectively, while Nicaragua, North Korea, Venezuela and China, in that order, were the countries that spread the most disinformation, the report said. Each country listed in the report was given a score,