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
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