Public adherence to social distancing measures would be key to determining whether people would still be free to travel domestically, Minister of Transportation and Communications Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) said yesterday.
Yesterday was the first workday after people returned from the four-day Children’s Day and Tomb Sweeping Day holiday.
Media reports showed that tourists in some popular travel destinations, such as Kenting (墾丁), failed to observe the Central Epidemic Command Center’s social distancing recommendations, which advised people to keep a distance of at least 1m when they are outdoors.
Photo: CNA
As the International Workers’ Day long weekend from May 1 to 3 is coming in three weeks, some have suggested that the government cancel the holiday to prevent crowds during the pandemic, or the nation’s efforts to effectively contain the spread of COVID-19 in the past two months would be wasted.
Asked if canceling the Workers’ Day weekend would be another heavy blow to domestic tourism, Lin said that preventing the spread of the disease remained the government’s top priority.
The ministry had ensured that travelers comply with the government’s disease-prevention policy during the past holiday, including wearing masks and having their temperature taken.
“Visitors to the 13 national scenic areas and 25 amusement parks supervised by the Tourism Bureau were down 50 percent compared with the same period last year. If you look at the usage rate of the parking space in amusement parks, except for the 30 to 40 percent at Lipao Resort and 20 to 30 percent at Janfusun Fancyworld the rest had a usage rate of less than 10 percent,” he said.
People can enjoy their holiday outdoors and feel just as relaxed when they adhere to disease-prevention policies, including observing social distancing, wearing masks, visiting less-crowded areas and avoiding peak travel time, Lin said.
The next two weeks would be a critical period to gauge whether people had strictly followed official disease-prevention measures during the holiday, he said.
“If the answer is yes, then we might still be free to travel domestically during long weekends. If people failed to restrain themselves and subsequently caused the virus to spread further, we could all be grounded,” Lin added.
Capping the number of people visiting a scenic area or entering a hotel is worth considering, he said, adding that hotels or travel service operators could follow this rule to avoid cluster infections in their facilities.
Most of the hoteliers across the nation had a pretty low occupancy rate during the holiday, except those in Kenting, Hualien, Taitung and Taichung’s Cingjing Farm (清境農場), he said.
Death row inmate Huang Lin-kai (黃麟凱), who was convicted for the double murder of his former girlfriend and her mother, is to be executed at the Taipei Detention Center tonight, the Ministry of Justice announced. Huang, who was a military conscript at the time, was convicted for the rape and murder of his ex-girlfriend, surnamed Wang (王), and the murder of her mother, after breaking into their home on Oct. 1, 2013. Prosecutors cited anger over the breakup and a dispute about money as the motives behind the double homicide. This is the first time that Minister of Justice Cheng Ming-chien (鄭銘謙) has
BITTERLY COLD: The inauguration ceremony for US president-elect Donald Trump has been moved indoors due to cold weather, with the new venue lacking capacity A delegation of cross-party lawmakers from Taiwan, led by Legislative Speaker Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜), for the inauguration of US president-elect Donald Trump, would not be able to attend the ceremony, as it is being moved indoors due to forecasts of intense cold weather in Washington tomorrow. The inauguration ceremony for Trump and US vice president-elect JD Vance is to be held inside the Capitol Rotunda, which has a capacity of about 2,000 people. A person familiar with the issue yesterday said although the outdoor inauguration ceremony has been relocated, Taiwan’s legislative delegation has decided to head off to Washington as scheduled. The delegation
TRANSPORT CONVENIENCE: The new ticket gates would accept a variety of mobile payment methods, and buses would be installed with QR code readers for ease of use New ticketing gates for the Taipei metro system are expected to begin service in October, allowing users to swipe with cellphones and select credit cards partnered with Taipei Rapid Transit Corp (TRTC), the company said on Tuesday. TRTC said its gates in use are experiencing difficulty due to their age, as they were first installed in 2007. Maintenance is increasingly expensive and challenging as the manufacturing of components is halted or becoming harder to find, the company said. Currently, the gates only accept EasyCard, iPass and electronic icash tickets, or one-time-use tickets purchased at kiosks, the company said. Since 2023, the company said it
Another wave of cold air would affect Taiwan starting from Friday and could evolve into a continental cold mass, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Temperatures could drop below 10°C across Taiwan on Monday and Tuesday next week, CWA forecaster Chang Chun-yao (張竣堯) said. Seasonal northeasterly winds could bring rain, he said. Meanwhile, due to the continental cold mass and radiative cooling, it would be cold in northern and northeastern Taiwan today and tomorrow, according to the CWA. From last night to this morning, temperatures could drop below 10°C in northern Taiwan, it said. A thin coat of snow
RSS