The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) administration’s performance in terms of COVID-19 prevention policies would be the make-or-break issue regarding the party’s success in the local elections in November, DPP caucus secretary-general Cheng Yun-peng (鄭運鵬) said on Tuesday.
If party members did well in preventing the COVID-19 pandemic, they would have a better chance of winning a successive term, Cheng added.
The public largely blamed Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中), who heads the Central Epidemic Command Center, for unpopular policies such as rapid screening test purchase restrictions, and rules about people who have tested positive for the virus visiting doctors and obtaining medication, a source said, asking to remain anonymous.
Photo: CNA
Chen’s declining popularity in the polls has affected his chances of being nominated to run for Taipei mayor, the sources said.
Until now, he has largely been seen as the DPP’s primary candidate, although the party has yet to make an official nomination, they said.
President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文), who is also DPP chairperson, has recently instructed doctors to shorten the time they spend with patients to make it easier for people to obtain their medication.
Whether Chen is nominated to run for Taipei mayor would be a game-changer for the DPP, the source said, adding that he is still the party’s top choice for the position.
The DPP is still lacking a decent nominee to run against incumbent New Taipei City Mayor Hou You-yi (侯友宜) of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), they added.
Another DPP source said that pandemic prevention efforts are the party’s primary focus.
The DPP is looking at three party members — former legislators Cheng Pao-ching (鄭寶清), Peng Shao-chin (彭紹瑾) and Huang Shih-cho (黃適卓) — who are campaigning to be nominated for Taoyuan mayor, while Hsinchu Mayor Lin Chih-chien (林智堅) and Cheng Yun-peng are seen as strong potential candidates, the source said.
Minister of the Interior Hsu Kuo-yung (徐國勇) denied that he had been asked by the DPP if he wanted to run for Taoyuan mayor on the party’s ticket, after political commentator Wu Tzu-chia (吳子嘉) said that Hsu was a possible candidate.
Cheng Yun-peng said he was not in a hurry to make a decision on the matter, but added that as the DPP’s most senior legislator in the region, he was aware of the possibility of being nominated.
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