Local government leaders are angling to invite Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中) to visit their areas, as the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) confirmed that its head would visit Tainan this weekend as part of the center’s efforts to promote a “new disease prevention lifestyle”and local tourism.
The visit last weekend by Chen and top health officials to Pingtung County’s Kenting (墾丁) saw them greeted enthusiastically, with people thanking them for protecting the nation during the COVID-19 outbreak, and trying to get Chen’s photograph or autograph.
The Hawaiian-style shirts worn by the group and the traditional wooden sandals that local residents gave Chen when his group visited Kenting’s night market on Saturday evening have become popular, with fans of Chen calling the Kenting shops wanting to buy their own.
Photo courtesy of CECC via CNA
Some media outlets have dubbed Chen “the king of advertorial” after many products he has used during the center’s daily news conference have become fads.
An opinion poll published by the Taiwanese Public Opinion Foundation yesterday showed that Chen has the highest favorability rating among government officials, at 91.9 percent, while President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) scored 67.6 percent.
Tainan Mayor Huang Wei-che (黃偉哲) yesterday said Chen would visit the city on Saturday and Sunday and authorities would organized local delicacies for him to taste.
So far the city’s plans call to apportion Tainan’s delicacies into the three meals Chen is expected to eat during his visit — dinner on Saturday, and breakfast and lunch on Sunday — and for the center’s daily afternoon news conference to be held before he leaves on Sunday, Huang said.
The CECC’s spokesman, Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Deputy Director-General Chuang Jen-hsiang (莊人祥), confirmed that Chen would visit Tainan, but said whether other health officials or Taipei-based reporters should accompany him has not been decided.
New Taipei City Mayor Hou You-yi (侯友宜) on Sunday said that he would “passionately welcome” Chen if he visited, and on Monday he added that he would cooperate with anyone who is able to promote tourism and boost consumption in the city.
Taichung Mayor Lu Shiow-yen (盧秀燕) on Monday said that during a recent telephone call with Chen, the minister had offered to visit Taichung if the city needed his help in any way.
Yesterday, Yilan County Commissioner Lin Zi-miao (林姿妙) said she would ask Chen and his team to visit the county to help boost its economy, while Taoyuan Mayor Cheng Wen-tsan (鄭文燦) said that he had invited Chen to visit Yungan Port (永安漁港) and local Hakka villages.
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
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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