The New Taipei City Government must present concrete COVID-19 prevention measures to curb local infections and not hesitate to ask the central government for help, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) caucus secretary-general Lo Chih-cheng (羅致政) said yesterday.
Lo has been keeping an eye on the performance of New Taipei City Mayor Hou You-yi (侯友宜), after he last month called for a lockdown and more radical measures to address a COVID-19 outbreak in the city.
After 310 COVID-19 infections were reported in the city on Wednesday, Lo told a news conference in Taipei that the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) mayor’s measures to respond to the virus — listing certain areas as hot spots and placing people on watch lists — was vague and insufficient.
Photo: Chien Hui-ju, Taipei Times
DPP Legislator Cheng Yun-peng (鄭運鵬) said that New Taipei City is talking a lot, but doing little, which shows that it is becoming fatigued from dealing with COVID-19.
As of Wednesday, New Taipei City had recorded 3,947 confirmed COVID-19 cases, of which Banciao District (板橋), with 885 cases, is one of the hardest-hit areas in the city, Lo said.
Lo was elected in Banciao, which is connected by bridges to Taipei’s Wanhua District (萬華), another hot spot of domestic infection.
New Taipei City has done almost nothing, except to list seven boroughs in Banciao as “severe hot spots,” serving no end except to create more panic among residents, Lo said.
It is astonishing to see the official numbers released by the New Taipei City Government, with 218 of 1,032, or 21.12 percent, boroughs deemed hot spots, Lo said.
The 1.11 million residents placed on “watch lists” represent 27.57 percent of the city’s population, Lo said, adding that the city government does not specify what it means to be on such a list.
The city government should offer tangible measures to address the situation, Lo said.
Hou’s calls for residents in hot spots to receive virus screening as soon as possible, while urging everyone not to leave their residences unless necessary, were contradictory, Lo added.
Lo called on the New Taipei City Government to offer tangible measures and concrete instructions to prevent panic.
Separately yesterday, Hou called on the central government to allocate more vaccine doses to people working at long-term care centers.
There are 12,000 caregivers working at such centers in New Taipei City, almost double the number in Taipei, Hou said, urging the central government to arrange for inoculations to prevent cluster infections in care facilities.
Additional reporting by Ho Yu-hua
Starlux Airlines, Taiwan’s newest international carrier, has announced it would apply to join the Oneworld global airline alliance before the end of next year. In an investor conference on Monday, Starlux Airlines chief executive officer Glenn Chai (翟健華) said joining the alliance would help it access Taiwan. Chai said that if accepted, Starlux would work with other airlines in the alliance on flight schedules, passenger transits and frequent flyer programs. The Oneworld alliance has 13 members, including American Airlines, British Airways, Cathay Pacific and Qantas, and serves more than 900 destinations in 170 territories. Joining Oneworld would also help boost
A new tropical storm formed late yesterday near Guam and is to approach closest to Taiwan on Thursday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. Tropical Storm Pulasan became the 14th named storm of the year at 9:25pm yesterday, the agency said. As of 8am today, it was near Guam traveling northwest at 21kph, it said. The storm’s structure is relatively loose and conditions for strengthening are limited, WeatherRisk analyst Wu Sheng-yu (吳聖宇) said on Facebook. Its path is likely to be similar to Typhoon Bebinca, which passed north of Taiwan over Japan’s Ryukyu Islands and made landfall in Shanghai this morning, he said. However, it
Taiwan's Gold Apollo Co (金阿波羅通信) said today that the pagers used in detonations in Lebanon the day before were not made by it, but by a company called BAC which has a license to use its brand. At least nine people were killed and nearly 3,000 wounded when pagers used by Hezbollah members detonated simultaneously across Lebanon yesterday. Images of destroyed pagers analyzed by Reuters showed a format and stickers on the back that were consistent with pagers made by Gold Apollo. A senior Lebanese security source told Reuters that Hezbollah had ordered 5,000 pagers from Taiwan-based Gold Apollo. "The product was not
COLD FACTS: ‘Snow skin’ mooncakes, made with a glutinous rice skin and kept at a low temperature, have relatively few calories compared with other mooncakes Traditional mooncakes are a typical treat for many Taiwanese in the lead-up to the Mid-Autumn Festival, but a Taipei-based dietitian has urged people not to eat more than one per day and not to have them every day due to their high fat and calorie content. As mooncakes contain a lot of oil and sugar, they can have negative health effects on older people and those with diabetes, said Lai Yu-han (賴俞含), a dietitian at Taipei Hospital of the Ministry of Health and Welfare. “The maximum you can have is one mooncake a day, and do not eat them every day,” Lai