Schools would open for the new semester on Sept. 1 as long as the nation’s COVID-19 alert remains at level 2 over the coming weeks, most local governments said yesterday.
Taipei Deputy Mayor Tsai Ping-kun (蔡炳坤) said that students would be required to wear masks, and must have dividers to separate them when eating.
No outdoor sports would be permitted, in line with the Central Epidemic Command Center’s (CECC) recommendations, he said.
Photo courtesy of the Tainan Bureau of Education
For music classes, teachers would only provide instruction and demonstrations, as students would not be permitted to remove their masks to perform, he added.
If a student is diagnosed with COVID-19, their class would be suspended, Tsai said of the city government’s tentatively planned measures to handle infections, adding that if two were infected, then the school would close.
If one-third of schools within a district are shut down due to COVID-19, all schools within the district would close, he added.
New Taipei City Education Department Commissioner Chang Ming-wen (張明文) said that schools in the city would be open under alert levels 1 and 2, adding that if the alert is raised to level 3, but there are no confirmed cases within a district, then schools in that district would remain open.
School would close for three days if there is one confirmed case reported, and 14 days if there are two COVID-19 cases, he said.
Taichung officials also said that students in the city would begin the new semester on Sept. 1, adding that the city has 93 percent vaccine coverage for its high-school and elementary-school teachers.
Tainan officials said that although they are in principle preparing to open schools on Sept. 1, they would adhere to the CECC’s guidelines for students at high-school level and below.
Additional reporting by Liu Wan-chunand Su Meng-chuan
An undersea cable to Penghu County has been severed, the Ministry of Digital Affairs said today, with a Chinese-funded ship suspected of being responsible. It comes just a month after a Chinese ship was suspected of severing an undersea cable north of Keelung Harbor. The National Communications and Cyber Security Center received a report at 3:03am today from Chunghwa Telecom that the No. 3 cable from Taiwan to Penghu was severed 14.7km off the coast of Tainan, the Ministry of Digital Affairs said. The Coast Guard Administration (CGA) upon receiving a report from Chunghwa Telecom began to monitor the Togolese-flagged Hong Tai (宏泰)
Actor Lee Wei (李威) was released on bail on Monday after being named as a suspect in the death of a woman whose body was found in the meeting place of a Buddhist group in Taipei’s Daan District (大安) last year, prosecutors said. Lee, 44, was released on NT$300,000 (US$9,148) bail, while his wife, surnamed Chien (簡), was released on NT$150,000 bail after both were summoned to give statements regarding the woman’s death. The home of Lee, who has retreated from the entertainment business in the past few years, was also searched by prosecutors and police earlier on Monday. Lee was questioned three
RISING TOURISM: A survey showed that tourist visits increased by 35 percent last year, while newly created attractions contributed almost half of the growth Changhua County’s Lukang Old Street (鹿港老街) and its surrounding historical area clinched first place among Taiwan’s most successful tourist attractions last year, while no location in eastern Taiwan achieved a spot in the top 20 list, the Tourism Administration said. The listing was created by the Tourism Administration’s Forward-looking Tourism Policy Research office. Last year, the Lukang Old Street and its surrounding area had 17.3 million visitors, more than the 16 million visitors for the Wenhua Road Night Market (文化路夜市) in Chiayi City and 14.5 million visitors at Tainan’s Anping (安平) historical area, it said. The Taipei 101 skyscraper and its environs —
Taiwan on Friday said a New Zealand hamburger restaurant has apologized for a racist remark to a Taiwanese customer after reports that it had first apologized to China sparked outrage in Taiwan. An image posted on Threads by a Taiwanese who ate at Fergburger in Queenstown showed that their receipt dated Sunday last week included the words “Ching Chang,” a racial slur. The Chinese Consulate-General in Christchurch in a statement on Thursday said it had received and accepted an apology from the restaurant over the incident. The comment triggered an online furor among Taiwanese who saw it as an insult to the
RSS