Starting today, eating and drinking in Taipei movie theaters is to be banned as the city government seeks to bolster its disease prevention measures.
Movie theaters may continue to sell food and beverages, but customers cannot consume them on the premises, Taipei Deputy Mayor Tsai Ping-kun (蔡炳坤) said.
The ban aims to ensure that people keep their masks on at all times when watching a movie, as they would be in close proximity to others inside a movie theater, he added.
Photo: Tsai Shu-yuan, Taipei Times
The new measure does not mean the COVID-19 alert level was being raised and it only aims to adjust precautions at movie theaters, Taipei Department of Information and Tourism Commissioner Liu Yi-ting (劉奕霆) said.
“Customers can still buy snacks and beverages, and eat them outside the theater hall while waiting for the movie to start,” he said.
There have been recent cases with unknown infection sources, so the city has been looking at measures to improve public safety, he added.
Offenders would not be fined for now, Tsai said, calling on the public and theaters to cooperate.
Tsai said the city would later this week reopen its online vaccine appointment Web site to finish off a stock of 80,000 doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine.
People can make appointments on the Web site on Friday and Saturday, he said, adding that vaccinations would begin on Monday.
Walk-in vaccination sites, such as the one in Taipei Railway Station, stopped work on Thursday for the Lunar New Year holiday, and would resume service on Monday next week, offering 600 doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech and the AstraZeneca vaccine each every day.
Meanwhile, the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) yesterday reported 17 domestic and 38 imported COVID-19 cases.
As 10 of the domestic cases tested positive during quarantine after being listed as close contacts of other confirmed cases, the spread of COVID-19 in Taiwan remains under control, said Centers for Disease Control Deputy Director-General Chuang Jen-hsiang (莊人祥), the CECC’s spokesman.
Sixteen of the new local cases were linked to previously reported clusters in Taoyuan, Kaohsiung, the greater Taipei area and Yilan County, while the source of one case, who was confirmed in Kaohsiung, but had recently been to New Taipei City, is being investigated, the CECC said.
Eleven of the new cases were classified as breakthrough infections.
One had received one dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, while three, including one under the age of 10, have not been vaccinated.
The vaccination status of two cases is still being investigated, the CECC said.
US President Donald Trump yesterday announced sweeping "reciprocal tariffs" on US trading partners, including a 32 percent tax on goods from Taiwan that is set to take effect on Wednesday. At a Rose Garden event, Trump declared a 10 percent baseline tax on imports from all countries, with the White House saying it would take effect on Saturday. Countries with larger trade surpluses with the US would face higher duties beginning on Wednesday, including Taiwan (32 percent), China (34 percent), Japan (24 percent), South Korea (25 percent), Vietnam (46 percent) and Thailand (36 percent). Canada and Mexico, the two largest US trading
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
China's military today said it began joint army, navy and rocket force exercises around Taiwan to "serve as a stern warning and powerful deterrent against Taiwanese independence," calling President William Lai (賴清德) a "parasite." The exercises come after Lai called Beijing a "foreign hostile force" last month. More than 10 Chinese military ships approached close to Taiwan's 24 nautical mile (44.4km) contiguous zone this morning and Taiwan sent its own warships to respond, two senior Taiwanese officials said. Taiwan has not yet detected any live fire by the Chinese military so far, one of the officials said. The drills took place after US Secretary
RSS