Hospitals, long-term care centers and psychiatric wards in New Taipei City and Keelung yesterday announced that visitors will not be allowed until at least Jan. 21.
The city governments made the announcement on the same day that Taipei implemented similar measures amid heightened COVID-19 prevention measures following a cluster of infections linked to Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport.
In-patients are only allowed one family member with them at a time, the New Taipei City Government said.
Photo: CNA
Effective immediately, everyone in New Taipei City must wear a mask if they cannot maintain social distance when taking photographs or singing at a karaoke establishment, New Taipei City Mayor Hou You-yi (侯友宜) said.
Everyone must submit their details with the contract tracing system at establishments and should closely follow pandemic prevention measures by washing their hands often and checking their temperature, Hou said.
New Taipei City is increasing its hospital bed capacity, its fleet of taxis to transport people to quarantine hotels and quarantine hotel staff numbers, he said, adding that some COVID-19 testing stations would remain open at weekends.
Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) said that all live events in the capital would be halted if cases in the city from unidentified sources exceed 10 a day, or if two or more cluster infections are reported in the city.
Ko did not say whether Taipei would also enforce mandatory mask rules for people taking photos or singing.
Restaurants are at the greatest risk, he added.
“If we can keep the pandemic at bay, we will not order restaurants to stop dine-in services,” he said.
Taipei Deputy Mayor Vivian Huang (黃珊珊) said that all 516 taxi drivers designated to transport people to quarantine hotels in Taipei are expected to undergo polymerase chain reaction tests today and tomorrow.
The drivers are expected to be tested every week, Huang said, adding that the city government has required them to get a third COVID-19 vaccination within a week.
Kaohsiung Mayor Chen Chi-mai (陳其邁) said that this year’s public health checkups for elderly people and other non-necessary healthcare activities in the city have been suspended.
Hospital visits would be limited and all patients are limited to two visitors at a time, Chen said, adding that all healthcare workers at quarantine hotels must get their third vaccination as soon as possible.
Additional reporting by Ho Yu-hua and Huang Hsu-lei
Taiwanese can file complaints with the Tourism Administration to report travel agencies if their activities caused termination of a person’s citizenship, Mainland Affairs Council Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said yesterday, after a podcaster highlighted a case in which a person’s citizenship was canceled for receiving a single-use Chinese passport to enter Russia. The council is aware of incidents in which people who signed up through Chinese travel agencies for tours of Russia were told they could obtain Russian visas and fast-track border clearance, Chiu told reporters on the sidelines of an event in Taipei. However, the travel agencies actually applied
Japanese footwear brand Onitsuka Tiger today issued a public apology and said it has suspended an employee amid allegations that the staff member discriminated against a Vietnamese customer at its Taipei 101 store. Posting on the social media platform Threads yesterday, a user said that an employee at the store said that “those shoes are very expensive” when her friend, who is a migrant worker from Vietnam, asked for assistance. The employee then ignored her until she asked again, to which she replied: "We don't have a size 37." The post had amassed nearly 26,000 likes and 916 comments as of this
New measures aimed at making Taiwan more attractive to foreign professionals came into effect this month, the National Development Council said yesterday. Among the changes, international students at Taiwanese universities would be able to work in Taiwan without a work permit in the two years after they graduate, explainer materials provided by the council said. In addition, foreign nationals who graduated from one of the world’s top 200 universities within the past five years can also apply for a two-year open work permit. Previously, those graduates would have needed to apply for a work permit using point-based criteria or have a Taiwanese company
The Shilin District Prosecutors’ Office yesterday indicted two Taiwanese and issued a wanted notice for Pete Liu (劉作虎), founder of Shenzhen-based smartphone manufacturer OnePlus Technology Co (萬普拉斯科技), for allegedly contravening the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例) by poaching 70 engineers in Taiwan. Liu allegedly traveled to Taiwan at the end of 2014 and met with a Taiwanese man surnamed Lin (林) to discuss establishing a mobile software research and development (R&D) team in Taiwan, prosecutors said. Without approval from the government, Lin, following Liu’s instructions, recruited more than 70 software
RSS