The Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) plans to require people attending events that pose a high risk of contagion to prove that they have received a COVID-19 booster shot.
The CECC unveiled the plan yesterday at a meeting at the Executive Yuan called by Premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌).
The policy would also cover people whose jobs or circumstances require them to have close contact with others, given they are eligible to receive a vaccine, it said.
Photo courtesy of the Central Epidemic Command Center
The nation’s first-dose vaccination rate is 83.62 percent and two-dose coverage rate is 78.73 percent, while the booster shot coverage rate is 52.34 percent, the CECC said.
Noting that 99.6 percent of people who tested positive for COVID-19 this year were either asymptomatic or had only mild symptoms, Su told the meeting that the government is changing its pandemic strategy “to have no severe illness and to control the conditions of those with little to no symptoms.”
To achieve the goal of “zero severe COVID-19,” all government agencies should endeavor to increase the vaccine coverage rate among older people and other high-risk groups, he said.
Photo: CNA
In light of rising COVID-19 infections among students, Su instructed the Ministry of Education to clarify the standards for canceling classes.
The CECC yesterday reported 439 new domestic COVID-19 cases, this year’s second-highest daily figure.
It was the 11th consecutive day that the number of new local cases had exceeded 100 and the third straight day with a local case count above 400, indicating that domestic cases “are still at a high point,” Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中), who heads the center, told the CECC’s daily news conference.
New Taipei City reported the highest number of new cases with 145, followed by Taipei with 100 and Keelung with 36, CECC data showed.
Kaohsiung reported 32 cases, Taoyuan 25, Hualien County 21, Yilan County 14 and Hsinchu County 12, while 10 cases each were reported in Hsinchu City and Pingtung County.
Taichung reported nine cases, Chiayi County and Tainan six each, and Changhua County five. Yunlin County recorded four cases, Miaoli County two, and Chiayi City and Taitung County one each.
Of the 3,976 domestic cases confirmed from Jan. 1 to Sunday, 13 were classified as moderate infections and two as severe, while the rest were either mild or asymptomatic, Chen said.
The CECC yesterday reported one new case with moderate symptoms, a Taiwanese woman in her 30s who received a single dose of a COVID-19 vaccine.
She tested positive for COVID-19 on Wednesday, and had lower oxygen levels and shortness of breath. She is being treated at a hospital, Chen said.
The CECC yesterday reported 191 imported cases, of whom 117 tested positive upon arrival in Taiwan.
Chen said that a contributing factor to the high number of imported cases is a flight from Vietnam that arrived on Sunday, when 48 of the 204 passengers on board tested positive upon arrival.
China has reserved offshore airspace in the Yellow Sea and East China Sea from March 27 to May 6, issuing alerts usually used to warn of military exercises, although no such exercises have been announced, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported yesterday. Reserving such a large area for 40 days without explanation is an “unusual step,” as military exercises normally only last a few days, the paper said. These alerts, known as Notice to Air Missions (Notams), “are intended to inform pilots and aviation authorities of temporary airspace hazards or restrictions,” the article said. The airspace reserved in the alert is
NAMING SPAT: The foreign ministry called on Denmark to propose an acceptable solution to the erroneous nationality used for Taiwanese on residence permits Taiwan has revoked some privileges for Danish diplomatic staff over a Danish permit that lists “Taiwan” as “China,” Eric Huang (黃鈞耀), head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ Department of European Affairs, told a news conference in Taipei yesterday. Reporters asked Huang whether the Danish government had responded to the ministry’s request that it correct the nationality on Danish residence permits of Taiwanese, which has been listed as “China” since 2024. Taiwan’s representative office in Denmark continues to communicate with the Danish government, and the ministry has revoked some privileges previously granted to Danish representatives in Taiwan and would continue to review
More than half of the bamboo vipers captured in Tainan in the past few years were found in the city’s Sinhua District (新化), while other districts had smaller catches or none at all. Every year, Tainan captures about 6,000 snakes which have made their way into people’s homes. Of the six major venomous snakes in Taiwan, the cobra, the many-banded krait, the brown-spotted pit viper and the bamboo viper are the most frequently captured. The high concentration of bamboo vipers captured in Sinhua District is puzzling. Tainan Agriculture Bureau Forestry and Nature Conservation Division head Chu Chien-ming (朱健明) earlier this week said that the
The first bluefin tuna of the season, brought to shore in Pingtung County and weighing 190kg, was yesterday auctioned for NT$10,600 (US$333.5) per kilogram, setting a record high for the local market. The auction was held at the fish market in Donggang Fishing Harbor, where the Siaoliouciou Island-registered fishing vessel Fu Yu Ching No. 2 delivered the “Pingtung First Tuna” it had caught for bidding. Bidding was intense, and the tuna was ultimately jointly purchased by a local restaurant and a local company for NT$10,600 per kilogram — NT$300 ,more than last year — for a total of NT$2.014 million. The 67-year-old skipper
RSS