Taipei is likely to set up a COVID-19 vaccination passport system that would result in people being seated in different areas in restaurants depending on vaccination status, Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) said yesterday.
Ko made the remark at a news conference to promote the Fun Guandu festival at Guandu Temple in the city’s Beitou District (北投).
During the event’s opening speech, Ko said he expects that more than 70 percent of Taipei residents would be fully vaccinated by the end of January and that Taiwan’s COVID-19 situation would ease fully before the Lunar New Year next year.
Photo: Yang Hsin-hui, Taipei Times
“Theoretically, people would not need to wear a mask after having received two doses,” he said, adding that with the expected progress in COVID-19 drug development, Taiwan could ease border restrictions in January.
“People who have not been vaccinated should go get their shots as soon as possible, because we will introduce a vaccination passport soon,” Ko said.
The passport would be integrated with the TaipeiPASS app, which would flash a “green light” for fully vaccinated people, “yellow” for those who had their first shot and “red” for unvaccinated people, he said.
Fully vaccinated people would be able to choose seats in restaurants freely, while unvaccinated people would be seated in separate areas with table dividers, Ko said.
More than 60 percent of Taipei residents have received at least one vaccine dose, he said.
As many people who are registered elsewhere live in the capital, it is possible that the actual first-dose coverage is about 70 percent, with 30 percent of people in Taipei being fully vaccinated, Ko said.
“As vaccine production has accelerated and Taipei can administer about 40,000 doses per day, I hope that the full-vaccination rate reaches about 70 percent by the end of the year,” he said.
Asked about Ko’s statement on mask wearing, Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中) said that the mask mandates would not be fully eased before the Lunar New Year.
Vaccinations would continue, said Chen, who heads the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC).
Centers for Disease Control Deputy Director-General Chuang Jen-hsiang (莊人祥), who is a CECC spokesman, said that as long as there are COVID-19 outbreaks abroad, wearing a mask would be the “last line of defense” to prevent imported cases from spreading.
Two US House of Representatives committees yesterday condemned China’s attempt to orchestrate a crash involving Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim’s (蕭美琴) car when she visited the Czech Republic last year as vice president-elect. Czech local media in March last year reported that a Chinese diplomat had run a red light while following Hsiao’s car from the airport, and Czech intelligence last week told local media that Chinese diplomats and agents had also planned to stage a demonstrative car collision. Hsiao on Saturday shared a Reuters news report on the incident through her account on social media platform X and wrote: “I
SHIFT PRIORITIES: The US should first help Taiwan respond to actions China is already taking, instead of focusing too heavily on deterring a large-scale invasion, an expert said US Air Force leaders on Thursday voiced concerns about the Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) missile capabilities and its development of a “kill web,” and said that the US Department of Defense’s budget request for next year prioritizes bolstering defenses in the Indo-Pacific region due to the increasing threat posed by China. US experts said that a full-scale Chinese invasion of Taiwan is risky and unlikely, with Beijing more likely to pursue coercive tactics such as political warfare or blockades to achieve its goals. Senior air force and US Space Force leaders, including US Secretary of the Air Force Troy Meink and
‘BUILDING PARTNERSHIPS’: The US military’s aim is to continue to make any potential Chinese invasion more difficult than it already is, US General Ronald Clark said The likelihood of China invading Taiwan without contest is “very, very small” because the Taiwan Strait is under constant surveillance by multiple countries, a US general has said. General Ronald Clark, commanding officer of US Army Pacific (USARPAC), the US Army’s largest service component command, made the remarks during a dialogue hosted on Friday by Washington-based think tank the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Asked by the event host what the Chinese military has learned from its US counterpart over the years, Clark said that the first lesson is that the skill and will of US service members are “unmatched.” The second
Czech officials have confirmed that Chinese agents surveilled Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) during her visit to Prague in March 2024 and planned a collision with her car as part of an “unprecedented” provocation by Beijing in Europe. Czech Military Intelligence learned that their Chinese counterparts attempted to create conditions to carry out a demonstrative incident involving Hsiao, which “did not go beyond the preparation stage,” agency director Petr Bartovsky told Czech Radio in a report yesterday. In addition, a Chinese diplomat ran a red light to maintain surveillance of the Taiwanese
RSS