COVID-19
Cases drop below 10,000
The Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) yesterday reported 7,745 new COVID-19 cases, the first time the daily caseload fell below 10,000 since April 27 last year, when the center reported 8,822 cases. It also reported 44 deaths from the disease. Yesterday’s daily caseload represented a 35.8 percent decline from a week earlier. Taiwan has recorded 10,033,108 COVID-19 cases and 17,908 deaths since the pandemic began in early 2020. The CECC has stopped providing daily updates on the age distribution and health status of the deceased, as well as the number of vaccine doses they received. It is also no longer releasing city and county case numbers daily.
CULTURE
Event marks 228 Incident
The Gongsheng Music Festival is to be held on Ketagalan Boulevard in Taipei this afternoon, featuring music performances, speeches and exhibitions that focus on the 228 Incident and transitional justice. The Taiwan Gongsheng Youth Association, the event organizer, has invited three family members of 228 Incident victims to share their stories. Elephant Gym (大象體操), Lin Sheng-xiang (林生祥), Panai and other performers are to take the stage from 4pm to 10pm. An exhibition is also scheduled at 3pm to teach about the Incident using oral history materials, photographs and film screenings. Several organizations, including the Taiwan Association for Human Rights and the Avanguard Publishing House, are to set up booths where visitors can learn about the Incident, as well as other issues relating to migrant workers, gender and the environment. Access to all of the activities at the festival is free to the public.
AGRICULTURE
Breeder chickens arrive
The nation has taken delivery of 50,000 imported breeder chickens as part of a plan to import 300,000 of the fowl this year to address a nationwide egg shortage, Chiang Wen-chuan (江文全), deputy head of the Council of Agriculture’s (COA) Department of Animal Industry said yesterday. By increasing the number of imported egg-laying chickens, low-yield hens can be replaced, he said. The COA is to help egg farmers import egg-laying chickens to provide a sufficient supply and accelerate the replacement of aged hens. The COA said it would also import 5 million shell and liquid eggs by the end of next month to address the egg shortage. The nation imported 260,000 egg-laying chickens last year.
CRIME
Marine arrested in Pingtung
A marine was arrested in Pingtung County on Saturday while allegedly trying to sell a pistol and 20 bullets to an undercover police officer for NT$65,000. The 21-year-old soldier, surnamed Hsu (徐), and a man surnamed Teng (鄧) were arrested after police posing as arms buyers online arranged to meet the suspects at an indoor shrimp fishing restaurant, Fangliao Precinct Deputy Squadron Chief Hsieh Ming-pang (謝明邦) said. Along with the pistol and the bullets, police also seized two mobile phones and a vehicle from Hsu and Teng, Hsieh said. Prosecutors charged the pair with contravening the Controlling Guns, Ammunition and Knives Act (槍砲彈藥刀械管制條例), police said, adding that they were released after posting bail of NT$100,000 each. Following the arrests, the navy said in a statement that the weapon seized from Hsu was not a service weapon, adding that no guns were missing from its armory. Soldiers found guilty of involvement in such activities are subject to substantial punishment along with dismissal, the navy said.
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