Minister of Foreign Affairs Joseph Wu (吳釗燮) yesterday said he has received several calls from foreign missions in Taiwan to learn from the nation’s response to the COVID-19 outbreak.
Three times, the ministry has hosted ambassadors and representatives to explain the nation’s prevention measures, Wu said in response to media queries, adding that they were grateful for the explanations.
He has also received telephone calls from many of them who say that Taiwan’s response has been successful and hope their governments would learn from Taiwan’s experience, Wu said.
Photo: Peter Lo, Taipei Times
Due to the outbreak and with cases on the rise in Europe, the government is still observing the situation to see whether it would be appropriate to send a delegation to this year’s World Health Assembly, which is typically held in May in Geneva, Switzerland, he said.
Later at a meeting of the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Ma Wen-chun (馬文君) asked Wu whether ministry personnel stationed abroad have epidemic prevention supplies from the country they are in.
Wu said they did not, but the ministry sends supplies to its offices abroad as needed.
The ministry sends about 460 surgical masks per week to its personnel abroad, he said.
Overseas offices in countries for which the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) has issued a level 1, 2 or 3 advisory are asked what they need, the ministry said.
With the CECC’s approval, the ministry on Feb. 22 began sending masks to personnel overseas and each person is eligible for one per day, it said, adding that the CECC on Friday approved the distribution of masks to dependents of ministry personnel stationed abroad.
In other news, a Taiwanese man who often travels to Thailand for work on Saturday said that a gymnasium in Thailand canceled his membership and asked him to leave the premises.
He was taken to a police station and although he was released, the situation was unreasonable and he is planning to file a lawsuit, the man said.
The Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Thailand yesterday said it is assisting the man.
The situation was an isolated case and the government regrets that a Taiwanese was treated this way, Wu said.
Thailand’s government does not have policies that “discriminate” against Taiwanese, so the government would not be issuing retaliatory measures, Wu said.
The case stemmed from the gym’s policy of prohibiting use by members who had traveled to infected areas within 14 days prior, the representative office said.
As the policy was only presented in Thai and the gym unilaterally canceled the man’s membership, he believes his personal data was violated and sought help, it said.
Representative to Thailand Tung Chen-yuan (童振源) said that the office would communicate with the gym to let it know that Taiwan is not on a Thai government list of restricted nations.
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