Three Taipei City Government health officials have been transferred over a scandal involving clinics administering COVID-19 vaccines to people not eligible to receive them, the city government confirmed on Saturday.
Yu Tsan-hua (余燦華), head of the Taipei Department of Health’s Disease Control Division, was reassigned to head the Zhongzheng District (中正) Health Center while the city’s Clean Governance Committee reviews administrative errors allegedly made by him and two other department officials, the department said.
Zhongzheng District Health Center head Zhang Hui-mei (張惠美) has taken Yu’s position, the department said, adding that she has experience working in the Disease Control Division.
The three officials have been under review since June 19, when an initial internal affairs investigation determined that they had potentially played a role in the distribution of vaccines in ways that contravened government protocols.
This was after Department of Health Commissioner Huang Shier-chieg (黃世傑) offered to resign on June 10, when it was revealed that several clinics in the city’s COVID-19 vaccination program had vaccinated people not on the central government’s list of priority groups.
One of the clinics, the Good Liver Clinic, vaccinated staff and volunteers at its two offices, even though they did not meet the criteria of being medical workers eligible for vaccination early last month. The clinics have been fined up to NT$2 million (US$71,454) per location and removed from the vaccination program.
Huang’s resignation was not accepted and he has been placed on leave while the investigation is under way, Taipei Deputy Mayor Tsai Ping-kun (蔡炳坤) said.
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