HEALTH
Girl to get NT$3 million
A panel of experts appointed by the Ministry of Health and Welfare has agreed that a girl from Taoyuan who developed myocarditis, or inflammation of the heart, after taking the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine should be paid NT$3 million (US$97,103) in compensation. The girl, identified as a minor older than 10, is the youngest person to be compensated under the government’s Vaccine Injury Compensation Program, the Central Epidemic Command Center said on Thursday. The panel convened on Aug. 11 to review 70 cases involving individuals seeking compensation because of side effects from a COVID-19 vaccine, and decided that claims in 14 cases were valid. The valid cases consisted of 10 recipients of the AstraZeneca vaccine, two of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, and one each of the Moderna and Medigen vaccines. All but the NT$3 million payout were in the range of NT$5,000 to NT$500,000.
TRAVEL
Railway crossing fixed
Signals at a railway crossing in Changhua County malfunctioned twice on Thursday and yesterday, with services returning to normal at 2:15pm, the Taiwan Railways Administration said. Workers began repairing malfunctioning signals and barriers at the railway crossing in Dacun Township (大村) between Dacun and Yuanlin stations on Thursday morning, and the work delayed long-haul services on the Western Trunk Line throughout the day. An employee at Yuanlin Station said that there were delays of up to 40 minutes on Thursday, with the train operator helping affected passengers take alternative train or bus services. After continuous adjustment and testing, malfunctioning axle counters were repaired at 11:53am, Electrical Engineering Department head Chou Tsu-te (周祖德) said. The signals malfunctioned again at 1:22pm before going back online at 2:15pm, affecting about 50,345 passengers.
POLITICS
Lin denies plagiarism claim
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Hsinchu mayoral candidate Lin Geng-ren (林耕仁) on Wednesday denied allegations of plagiarism made about a second master’s thesis, after two days earlier being accused of plagiarizing a different thesis. The thesis, which he completed in 2005, met current standards at Chung Hua University, Lin said in a statement in response to allegations made by Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) officials earlier in the day. DPP Hsinchu City Councilor Liu Kang-yan (劉康彥) said 20 of 63 pages of Lin’s thesis were plagiarized from a student surnamed Tai (戴), who graduated in 2004. Liu said that Lin’s thesis, which researched the service and voter satisfaction of local representatives in Hsinchu, copied not only the table of contents, but also acknowledgments from Tai, whose paper was about customized functions on the Web sites of police agencies. Lin said he welcomes a further review by the university, but the school said it could not start an investigation as it had not received a complaint.
EDUCATION
You visits French school
Legislative Speaker You Si-kun (游錫?) on Wednesday visited Lycee International Francais de Taipei, a French school that opened last week, and said it would help to boost exchanges between the two nations. The elementary school, which began its first semester on Aug. 29 with about 40 students from various nations, offers classes in three languages, You said in a social media post after the visit. The establishment of the school would be “very helpful” in promoting cultural exchanges between Taiwan and France, he wrote. Located on the campus of Liugong Junior High School, the French school caters to children from first to fifth grade.
Tropical Storm Nari is not a threat to Taiwan, based on its positioning and trajectory, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Nari has strengthened from a tropical depression that was positioned south of Japan, it said. The eye of the storm is about 2,100km east of Taipei, with a north-northeast trajectory moving toward the eastern seaboard of Japan, CWA data showed. Based on its current path, the storm would not affect Taiwan, the agency said.
The Taipei Department of Health’s latest inspection of fresh fruit and vegetables sold in local markets revealed a 25 percent failure rate, with most contraventions involving excessive pesticide residues, while two durians were also found to contain heavy metal cadmium at levels exceeding safety limits. Health Food and Drug Division Director Lin Kuan-chen (林冠蓁) yesterday said the agency routinely conducts inspections of fresh produce sold at traditional markets, supermarkets, hypermarkets, retail outlets and restaurants, testing for pesticide residues and other harmful substances. In its most recent inspection, conducted in May, the department randomly collected 52 samples from various locations, with testing showing
Taipei and other northern cities are to host air-raid drills from 1:30pm to 2pm tomorrow as part of urban resilience drills held alongside the Han Kuang exercises, Taiwan’s largest annual military exercises. Taipei, New Taipei City, Keelung, Taoyuan, Yilan County, Hsinchu City and Hsinchu County are to hold the annual Wanan air defense exercise tomorrow, following similar drills held in central and southern Taiwan yesterday and today respectively. The Taipei Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) and Maokong Gondola are to run as usual, although stations and passenger parking lots would have an “entry only, no exit” policy once air raid sirens sound, Taipei
The government should improve children’s outdoor spaces and accelerate carbon reduction programs, as the risk of heat-related injury due to high summer temperatures rises each year, Greenpeace told a news conference yesterday. Greenpeace examined summer temperatures in Taipei, New Taipei City, Taoyuan, Hsinchu City, Taichung, Tainan and Kaohsiung to determine the effects of high temperatures and climate change on children’s outdoor activities, citing data garnered by China Medical University, which defines a wet-bulb globe temperature (WBGT) of 29°C or higher as posing the risk of heat-related injury. According to the Central Weather Administration, WBGT, commonly referred to as the heat index, estimates
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