Eight Taiwanese wind musicians who are attending an international music festival in Jeju Island, South Korea, tested positive for the A(H1N1) flu virus on Monday, South Korean health authorities said yesterday.
Six other Taiwanese wind instrument players were put under observation on Monday after they developed fevers, the authorities said.
Five Malaysians who were also attending the 2009 International Wind Instrument Festival on Jeju Island were the first participants to test positive for the A(H1N1) flu strain on Sunday, South Korean health authorities said.
ONGOING
Meanwhile, the Central Epidemic Command Center said yesterday that approximately 9,000 new people are confirmed with A(H1N1) influenza each week, saying it recommended canceling classes should an infection occur.
SCHOOLS
A kindergarten, elementary school, junior high school, high school or cram school class should be canceled for five days if more than two students are confirmed as infected within three days, said the center’s spokesman Lin Ting (林頂), emphasizing that the measure applied to all types of flu.
MILITARY
Meanwhile, Lin confirmed that 81 out of 2,000 rookies at a Ministry of the Interior boot camp for alternative military service in Taichung’s Chengkungling (成功嶺) army base tested positive for the A(H1N1) flu virus after a screening test.
From July 1 through yesterday, there have been 43 swine flu cluster infections and 25 severe cases.
Among those 25 severe cases, two patients had died, three remained in intensive care, one other was in hospital, while 19 were released after making a complete recovery.
The Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts yesterday apologized for forbidding children from copying paintings by freehand drawing, saying it welcomes visitors to make sketches of paintings on drawing tablets or sketchpads. The museum issued the remark after a museumgoer nicknamed “Mickeyelk Gesner” on Thursday posted on Facebook that her son had been sketching a painting by Pablo Picasso on a tablet computer at the exhibition “Capturing the Moment” on Wednesday when a museum worker told him to stop drawing. “The staff told us, ‘Only taking photos is allowed. No copying. This is a rule,’” she quoted the worker as saying. Physician Lee Chia-yan
ACCESS DENIAL: Beijing would likely take formation in the Philippine Sea, outside Taipei’s missile range, while its forces on the east would be a deterrent to foreign aid China is increasingly likely to employ a strategy of anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) around Taiwan, which would use three carrier groups, a report from the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said. When China’s third aircraft carrier, the Fujian, is completed next year, China would have three carriers, which would likely be used to surround Taiwan and implement an A2/AD strategy, it said, adding that efforts to strengthen China’s two other carriers — the Liaoning and the Shandong — appear to corroborate this. In the quarterly report, the council cited declassified documents from the Ministry of National Defense that categorized China’s carriers as
China’s travel booking platform ctrip.com has removed the Evergreen Laurel Hotel in Shanghai from its listings after the chain’s Paris venue banned the Chinese national flag during the 2024 Summer Olympics, sparking an Internet furor. The story — which had garnered 110 million views on Sina Weibo — had since been removed from the platform’s list of most popular posts. On Monday, a Chinese influencer known as Instructor Zhang (張教官) accused the Evergreen Laurel Hotel in Paris of refusing his request for the Chinese flag to be displayed at the venue in a video uploaded to TikTok. A person purported to be a
A magnitude 5.7 earthquake struck off the coast of Yilan County at 5:06pm yesterday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The earthquake occurred offshore, 38.3km south-southeast of Yilan County Hall, at a depth of 9km, CWA data showed. The quake’s intensity, which gauges the actual effect of a seismic event, was highest in parts of Yilan County, where it measured a “weak 5” on Taiwan’s 7-tier intensity scale. The temblor recorded an intensity of 4 in parts of Hualien, Taoyuan and New Taipei, and 3 in parts of Taichung, Nantou, Taipei, Hsinchu and Miaoli, CWA data showed. There were no immediate reports of damage