Swimmers and pool owners yesterday appealed to the government for guidelines to reopen aquatic centers, as restrictions amid COVID-19 alerts are threatening the swimming pool industry and training regimens.
At a news conference hosted by Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) lawmakers, pool owners said that on Tuesday they would lodge a formal petition with the Ministry of Health and Welfare.
Pools have been closed since a nationwide level 3 COVID-19 alert was imposed on May 19, they said, adding that despite the government on Tuesday lowering the alert to level 2 and lifting some restrictions, pools were not given any leeway.
Photo provided by the office of Taiwan People’s Party Legislator Tsai Pi-ru
Support for the petition shows that many pool owners are on the brink of financial ruin, said Lin Kuei-ku (林歸谷), who initiated the petition.
We would love to give the government more time to look into possible measures, but we cannot wait more than one week, Lin said.
Swimmer Hsu Han-peng (許涵棚) and a coach, Huang Chiao-le (黃巧樂), said that they hoped to return to training.
Swimmers must train in the water — weight training is not enough, they said.
TPP Legislator Tsai Pi-ru (蔡壁如) said that “water-resistant” masks should be developed for swimmers, as well as other measures to shield them after they exit the pool.
TPP Legislator Chiu Chen-yuan (邱臣遠) said that if pools are not allowed to reopen in the summer — when they make most of their money — there might be mass closures of such facilities nationwide.
The government’s haste to show support for sports by congratulating athletes at at the Tokyo Olympics is undercut by their lack of attention to domestic athletes, TPP Legislator Anne Kao (高虹安) said.
Tainan’s team are considering not attending the National Games, as their swimmers could not train for the event, Kao said.
Suitable relaxation of regulations, as adopted at the Tokyo Olympics, should be referenced so that athletes’ training does not go to waste, she said.
Taiwan Swimming Pool Association president Huang Cheng-chang (黃正昌) and WDYG Corp chief executive officer Tu Cheng-chung (杜正忠) — citing the WHO, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the British National Health Service — said that COVID-19 infection is mitigated when swimming as long as preventive measures are followed and the water is sufficiently chlorinated.
Swimmers are usually spaced such that they exceed the recommended 5m of social distance, Tu said, adding that there is no reason for pools to remain closed while gyms have been allowed to reopen.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching