Fri, Jul 02, 2021 page3

• COVID-19: Taipei councilor criticizes city’s vaccination plan

  • By Yang Hsin-hui and Kayleigh Madjar / Staff reporter, with staff writer
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  Democratic Progressive Party Taipei City Councilor Wu Pei-yi (吳沛憶) yesterday criticized the city government after a market vendor tested positive for COVID-19 after receiving a jab against the virus, forcing 73 people at the vaccination site into isolation.

  Responding to an outbreak linked to Taipei Agricultural Products Marketing Co markets, the city set up rapid testing stations and announced plans to vaccinate everyone associated with the company’s wholesale markets.

  Priority was given to those who tested negative through rapid screening.

  

  Vendors wait for COVID-19 tests at Huannan Market in Taipei’s Wanhua District yesterday in such large numbers that the line extended to the parking lot on the fourth floor.

  Photo: CNA

  Taipei Market Administration Office Director Chen Ting-hui (陳庭輝) said that the city on June 9, 11 and 18 sent a team to Huannan Market (環南市場) in Wanhua District (萬華) to test all personnel.

  However, the vendor did not undergo mandatory testing before getting vaccinated, despite repeated notifications, Chen said.

  Only later did they go to a rapid testing station in New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋), where they tested positive, Chen said.

  To get the vaccine, the vendor rode in a charter bus and waited in line with other people, Chen said, adding that health officials have traced 73 contacts.

  The other vendors are angry that they have been listed as contacts and ordered to isolate because they obeyed orders to get inoculated, Wu said, adding that one vendor estimated that the case must have encountered 200 to 300 people during the process.

  The charter bus driver did not keep track of the passengers and everyone had to wait for at least half an hour, she said, adding: “Why were those people not listed as contacts?”

  Poor planning by the Taipei City Government has exposed people to danger when they were simply following instructions, Wu said.

  The city must more carefully consider all supporting measures beforehand, or it might create even more problems, she said.

  In an article on Voicettank, Taiwan Thinktank’s opinion Web site, Phil Smith, a former general manager of Reuters News North Asia who lives in New Taipei City, also criticized Taipei officials, writing that they had allowed partisan politics to interfere with the city’s pandemic response.

  The Chinese-language article published on June 18 titled: “Are Taiwan’s opposition camps the men in a pub talking politics,” criticized the “breathtaking arrogance” of Taipei Deputy Mayor Vivian Huang (黃珊珊), who on Facebook said that she had refused calls from Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中).

  “This amounts to dereliction of duty and shows gross disregard for the people of Taipei, who she is supposed to protect and serve,” Smith wrote.

  Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) blames the city’s failures on the central government while crediting other cities’ relative success to “insider trading,” he wrote.

  Taipei City Government spokeswoman Chen Chih-han (陳智菡) said that the city has made many concrete suggestions that have not always been adopted.

  For example, Taipei was the first to set up quarantine hotels and specialized taxis, she said.

  It also voiced concern to the Executive Yuan when the Central Epidemic Command Center in August last year allowed people entering the country to quarantine at regular hotels, she said.

  Ko also suggested that flight personnel be subject to the same quarantine rules as ordinary travelers and be prioritized for vaccines, Chen Chih-han said.
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