There needs to be a probe into the decision to ease COVID-19 quarantine rules for flight crew, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Johnny Chiang (江啟臣) said yesterday.
The Central Epidemic Command Center on April 14 announced that it was relaxing quarantine regulations for flight crew members of Taiwanese airlines returning to the nation after working long-haul flights abroad.
Starting from April 15, they were required to undergo three days of quarantine, at the end of which they would be tested for the virus, followed by 11 days of self-health management, the center said at the time.
Photo: CNA
The center has failed to clearly explain the process behind its decision to shorten the isolation period, Chiang told a weekly meeting of the KMT Central Standing Committee.
“It even claimed there were no meeting minutes, which is avoiding outside supervision,” he said.
“We ask that the control and judicial agencies pursue the truth,” he said, adding that the people who made the decision must take responsibility.
If administrative negligence is found, compensation should be paid for people who died after being infected with COVID-19, he said.
“Only in this way can a repeat of the same mistake truly be avoided,” he added.
Countries in Europe and the US have gradually begun to lift pandemic restrictions, and the EU is developing vaccine passports to reopen its borders, Chiang said.
“If [Taiwan] cannot acquire enough vaccines in time ... we might go from being a model student in disease prevention to becoming an isolated island,” he said.
Taiwan might even be “unable to stand on the starting line of post-pandemic global economic recovery,” he said, adding that this would had a severe effect on industrial development.
Over the past year, thanks to the efforts of the public, the domestic COVID-19 situation was well-managed and people were willing to wait for locally manufactured vaccines, he said.
However, with the spread of the local outbreak, demand for vaccines has been high and securing internationally approved doses has become a priority, he said.
In related news, the KMT said in a statement that it has collected 4,000 COVID-19 rapid testing kits and would be distributing them to the KMT-led governments of Penghu, Kinmen and Lienchiang counties.
As healthcare capacity on outlying islands is lower than on Taiwan proper, rapid testing should be done across the board to prevent people who have contracted the virus from entering, KMT Secretary-General Lee Chien-lung (李乾龍) said.
The KMT plans to purchase 40,000 medical goggles, 110,000 face shields, 12,000 protective gowns and 13,000 rapid testing kits to support COVID-19 prevention efforts by city and county governments, it said.
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
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,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods