Passengers on Taipei’s MRT metropolitan railway system are required to wear masks for the duration of their trip with immediate effect, regardless of whether they can maintain social distancing, the Taipei Rapid Transit Corp (TRTC) said yesterday.
Anyone who fails to comply to the rule — which was reinstated after several foreign nationals tested positive for COVID-19 after returning to their home countries from Taiwan — would be denied service and fined of up to NT$15,000, it said.
Three foreign nationals, two from Japan and one from Thailand, were diagnosed with COVID-19 after returning from Taiwan in June, last month and this month, officials have said.
Contact tracing for two of those cases, involving a Japanese student and a Thai worker, has been completed, the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) said on Wednesday.
There was no risk of community spread from those three cases, the center said.
However, the case of a Japanese engineer, who tested positive on Sunday after returning to Japan, is still being investigated, as is the case of a Belgian man who tested positive last week in Taiwan, the CECC said.
The CECC reiterated that people should wear masks in enclosed spaces, including medical care centers, schools, religious centers, markets, performance and entertainment centers, on public transportation, and in areas with large crowds.
The center said that many people had stopped wearing masks in most spaces once the nation’s disease situation had eased.
Compulsory mask wearing on Taipei’s MRT was relaxed on June 7, after no new domestically transmitted cases had been reported since April 12, according to CECC data.
Since then, passengers have not been required to wear masks on the MRT if they could maintain social distancing of at least 1.5m to other passengers.
However, wearing masks for the duration of their trips has remained obligatory for passengers who have a fever or respiratory symptoms.
Taiwanese scientists have engineered plants that can capture about 50 percent more carbon dioxide and produce more than twice as many seeds as unmodified plants, a breakthrough they hope could one day help mitigate global warming and grow more food staples such as rice. If applied to major food crops, the new system could cut carbon emissions and raise yields “without additional equipment or labor costs,” Academia Sinica researcher and lead author the study Lu Kuan-jen (呂冠箴) said. Academia Sinica president James Liao (廖俊智) said that as humans emit 9.6 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide compared with the 220 billion tonnes absorbed
The Taipei Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) Wanda-Zhonghe Line is 81.7 percent complete, with public opening targeted for the end of 2027, New Taipei City Mayor Hou You-yi (侯友宜) said today. Surrounding roads are to be open to the public by the end of next year, Hou said during an inspection of construction progress. The 9.5km line, featuring nine underground stations and one depot, is expected to connect Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall Station to Chukuang Station in New Taipei City’s Jhonghe District (中和). All 18 tunnels for the line are complete, while the main structures of the stations and depot are mostly finished, he
Taipei is to implement widespread road closures around Taipei 101 on Friday to make way for large crowds during the Double Ten National Day celebration, the Taipei Department of Transportation said. A four-minute fireworks display is to be launched from the skyscraper, along with a performance by 500 drones flying in formation above the nearby Nanshan A21 site, starting at 10pm. Vehicle restrictions would occur in phases, they said. From 5pm to 9pm, inner lanes of Songshou Road between Taipei City Hall and Taipei 101 are to be closed, with only the outer lanes remaining open. Between 9pm and 9:40pm, the section is
China’s plan to deploy a new hypersonic ballistic missile at a Chinese People’s Liberation Army Rocket Force (PLARF) base near Taiwan likely targets US airbases and ships in the western Pacific, but it would also present new threats to Taiwan, defense experts said. The New York Times — citing a US Department of Defense report from last year on China’s military power — on Monday reported in an article titled “The missiles threatening Taiwan” that China has stockpiled 3,500 missiles, 1.5 times more than four years earlier. Although it is unclear how many of those missiles were targeting Taiwan, the newspaper reported
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