Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中) and Pingtung County Commissioner Pan Men-an (潘孟安) yesterday announced the opening of the Oluanpi Day Care and LOHAS Center in Pingtung.
Chen, who heads the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC), attended the opening with top health officials on the second morning of his two-day trip to Pingtung’s Kenting (墾丁) to promote domestic travel while practicing the CECC’s “new disease prevention lifestyle.”
The officials were greeted by locals playing the yueqin (月琴, moon lute) while 86-year-old Hengchun folk song master Chen Ying (陳英) sang a song in her unique husky voice.
Photo: Tsai Tsung-hsien, Taipei Times
She incorporated a line into the song to remind people to wash their hands to prevent the spread of COVID-19.
The two-story day care center for elderly people at the southern tip of the Hengchun Peninsula (恆春半島) offers a spectacular sea view, Pan said.
The building used to be a police station and its reconstruction was funded by the government’s Long-term Care 2.0 program, he said.
According to the Pingtung County Department of Social Affairs, elderly people account for 17.5 percent of the county’s population, and the aging population is an especially serious issue in the Hengchun Peninsula and Manjhou Township (滿州).
Pingtung County has set a goal of establishing at least “one senior community care center per village” or “one day care center per township,” Pan said, adding that there are 359 community care centers in the county, covering 77.54 percent of the villages, the highest density in the nation.
The coverage rate of day care centers is 63.64 percent, with day care centers established in 21 of the county’s 33 townships, he said.
The Oluanpi Day Care and LOHAS Center is the 31st day care center in the county, he said, adding that the coverage rate would reach 82 percent by the end of the year, and the goal of “one day care center per township” is expected to be accomplished next year.
Pan gave Chen and each of the health officials a moon lute with their face and a poem carved on it.
Chen said that in addition to disease prevention with a Lifestyles of Health and Sustainability (LOHAS) mindset, long-term care and domestic travel are important, allowing people to be healthy physically and mentally.
It was relaxing to enjoy the beautiful ocean view and rich ecological environment at the Oluanpi Day Care and LOHAS Center, Chen said, adding that he would like to bring his wife, who loves plants, to the area someday.
The health officials visited elderly people at the center, who demonstrated tabletop games and how they use exercise equipment to strengthen their muscles. They also tasted mango ice-cream made by residents.
Chen said that for people to have a LOHAS mindset, they should remember to perform social distancing, wear a mask if the proper distance cannot be kept, keep good personal hygiene and avoid crowded areas when feeling ill.
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
FLU SEASON: Twenty-six severe cases were reported from Tuesday last week to Monday, including a seven-year-old girl diagnosed with influenza-associated encephalopathy Nearly 140,000 people sought medical assistance for diarrhea last week, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said on Tuesday. From April 7 to Saturday last week, 139,848 people sought medical help for diarrhea-related illness, a 15.7 percent increase from last week’s 120,868 reports, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The number of people who reported diarrhea-related illness last week was the fourth highest in the same time period over the past decade, Lee said. Over the past four weeks, 203 mass illness cases had been reported, nearly four times higher than the 54 cases documented in the same period
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:
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