Deputy Minister of Health and Welfare Hsueh Jui-yuan (薛瑞元) is to succeed Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中), who resigned on Thursday to focus on his Taipei mayoral election campaign, the Executive Yuan said yesterday.
Hsueh’s vacancy is to be filled by Hospital and Social Welfare Organizations Administration Commission Director Wang Pi-sheng (王必勝), who is also to take over as head of the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC), Executive Yuan spokesman Lo Ping-cheng (羅秉成) told a news conference in Taipei, adding that the changes are to take effect on Monday.
CECC specialist advisory panel convener Chang Shan-chwen (張上淳) is to become the Cabinet’s chief pandemic adviser, a newly created position, Lo said.
Photo: Fang Pin-chao, Taipei Times
President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) and Premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) created the office following discussions to establish a task force similar to the US’ presidential pandemic response team, he said.
Chen said that Hsueh is uniquely qualified to be minister, as he is licensed to practice law and medicine, making him a top choice to manage the ministry’s complex operations.
Hsueh is also a seasoned medical administrator, having served in the Hospital and Social Welfare Organizations Administration Commission for six years, with special expertise in the integration of healthcare services, national health insurance reform and long-term care, he said.
Regarding Wang, Chen said that he is the most qualified to head the CECC, as he proved himself to be effective in managing the government’s response to local COVID-19 outbreaks while working on the front lines of the center over the past two years.
Considering that most countries issue more than five denominations of banknotes, the central bank has decided to redesign all five denominations, the bank said as it prepares for the first major overhaul of the banknotes in more than 24 years. Central bank Governor Yang Chin-lung (楊金龍) is expected to report to the Legislative Yuan today on the bank’s operations and the redesign’s progress. The bank in a report sent to the legislature ahead of today’s meeting said it had commissioned a survey on the public’s preferences. Survey results showed that NT$100 and NT$1,000 banknotes are the most commonly used, while NT$200 and NT$2,000
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) yesterday reported the first case of a new COVID-19 subvariant — BA.3.2 — in a 10-year-old Singaporean girl who had a fever upon arrival in Taiwan and tested positive for the disease. The girl left Taiwan on March 20 and the case did not have a direct impact on the local community, it said. The WHO added the BA.3.2 strain to its list of Variants Under Monitoring in December last year, but this was the first imported case of the COVID-19 variant in Taiwan, CDC Deputy Director-General Lin Ming-cheng (林明誠) said. The girl arrived in Taiwan on
South Korea is planning to revise its controversial electronic arrival card, a step Taiwanese officials said prompted them to hold off on planned retaliatory measures, a South Korean media report said yesterday. A Yonhap News Agency report said that the South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs is planning to remove the “previous departure place” and “next destination” fields from its e-arrival card system. The plan, reached after interagency consultations, is under review and aims to simplify entry procedures and align the electronic form with the paper version, a South Korean ministry official said. The fields — which appeared only on the electronic form
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) is suspending retaliation measures against South Korea that were set to take effect tomorrow, after Seoul said it is updating its e-arrival system, MOFA said today. The measures were to be a new round of retaliation after Taiwan on March 1 changed South Korea's designation on government-issued alien resident certificates held by South Korean nationals to "South Korea” from the "Republic of Korea," the country’s official name. The move came after months of protests to Seoul over its listing of Taiwan as "China (Taiwan)" in dropdown menus on its new online immigration entry system. MOFA last week
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