Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Johnny Chiang (江啟臣) yesterday urged people to stand behind the nation’s front-line healthcare workers who are fighting COVID-19, and offered well-wishes to US President Joe Biden and his incoming team.
A cluster infection at Taoyuan General Hospital has presented a crisis regarding the domestic COVID-19 situation, which had been kept under control, he told a weekly KMT Central Standing Committee meeting in Taipei.
The development has demonstrated the speed at which the COVID-19 situation can change, and that humanity’s struggle against the virus continues, he said.
Photo: CNA
“We should not only cheer for the front-line healthcare workers, but also serve as their strongest support,” he said.
He urged the Central Epidemic Command Center to be “fully prepared,” and to speed up the payment of bonuses to healthcare workers involved in COVID-19 prevention efforts to provide them with “the most substantial support and encouragement.”
Should the center choose to step up precautions related to COVID-19, the KMT would follow its instructions, Chiang said, adding that the party would continue its referendum campaigns under the precondition that disease prevention measures are in place.
The center should treat changes in the COVID-19 situation with caution, boslter investigations and work closely with local governments, he said.
The public has doubts about the center’s stance on releasing COVID-19-related information, Chiang said, calling on it to realize President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) notion that “the more transparent the information, the more effective the epidemic prevention.”
With hours until Biden’s inauguration at the time of the KMT Central Standing Committee meeting, Chiang said that he sincerely hoped the disputes that have occurred in the US since its presidential election on Nov. 3 last year would settle, and that the US would “return to the normal track of a democratic system.”
“As the chairman of the largest opposition party in the Republic of China [ROC], I would like to thank the US government for its support of the ROC in the past, and give my sincerest wishes to the new president Biden and his team,” Chiang said.
He said he looked forward to continued friendship between the KMT and political parties in the US, as well as solid relations between Taiwan and the US.
At the meeting, Chiang also gave an update on the number of signatures his party has collected for its two referendum campaigns.
KMT Legislator Lin Wei-chou (林為洲) is the lead proposer of a national referendum that would ask voters if they agree that the government should impose a complete ban on the importation of meat, offal and related products from pigs fed with the animal feed additive ractopamine.
Chiang is the lead proposer of a national referendum that would ask voters if they agree that referendums should be held on the same day as a nationwide election if the election is scheduled to take place within six months after a referendum proposal has been approved.
Both proposals had collected more than 170,000 signatures as of yesterday, Chiang said.
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