Special outpatient clinics for people with respiratory symptoms are to operate in 156 hospitals from Saturday to Monday during the Lunar New Year holiday, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) announced on Tuesday.
The clinics would be in hospitals in every part of Taiwan except Lienchiang County, the CDC Web site says.
They would provide approximately 1,155 medical consultations, including 346 pediatric consultation sessions, more than in previous years, it said.
Photo: CNA
Compared with the previous week, the number of people with influenza-like symptoms seeking medical attention increased by 7 percent from 114,754 to 123,131 last week, the second-highest incidence for the same period in the past decade, CDC data showed.
From Jan. 30 to Monday, eight flu-related fatalities were reported. The people who died were about 40 to older than 90, six of whom had the influenza A (H3N2) virus, while seven had not received a flu vaccine, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said.
During the same period, 30 new cases of severe influenza were recorded, with the majority of patients having contracted H3N2 and not received a flu shot, Lee said.
The number of people with flu-like symptoms visiting doctors is expected to decrease this week and the next as many clinics would be closed for the Lunar New Year holiday, CDC Deputy Director-General Lo Yi-chun (羅一鈞) said.
However, the centers expect a rebound in cases after the holiday due to the increased movement of people during the Lunar New Year, Lo said.
He urged people with children who have weaker immune systems or have not yet received flu or COVID-19 vaccine shots to avoid crowded places, and, if they cannot, to wear a mask and wash their hands frequently.
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