The Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) yesterday reported 26,095 new local COVID-19 cases, an increase of 13.9 percent from last week, and predicted that total caseloads this week could rise by about 10 percent.
New Taipei City had the most cases at 5,258, followed by Taipei with 3,189, Taichung with 3,038, Taoyuan with 2,673, Kaohsiung with 2,179, Tainan with 1,650 and Changhua County with 1,132, CECC data showed.
Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Deputy Director-General Philip Lo (羅一鈞), deputy head of the CECC’s medical response division, reported 28 moderate-to-severe cases, which is the lowest daily number since May 3.
Photo: Lo Pei-te, Taipei Times
Among the 16 deceased reported yesterday, aged 50 to 90, nine had not received a booster vaccine and all had chronic illnesses, he said.
Lo also provided a weekly update on COVID-19 infections in residential care facilities, saying that positivity rates dropped further to 0.5 percent among staff and 0.6 percent among residents last week.
Meanwhile, the Control Yuan yesterday published its investigation report on the CECC’s “3+11” quarantine policy decision procedure.
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) has blamed the “3+11” quarantine policy — three days of home quarantine, followed by 11 days of self-health management for Taiwan-based airline crewmembers imposed in April last year — as the main reason for the local COVID-19 outbreak in May last year, and has questioned the CECC’s statement that it did not take minutes of the meeting that led to the decision.
The Control Yuan report said that due process was followed, with the head of the CECC listening to the responsible divisions’ reports on the issue and making a decision, announcing the policy at a news conference and issuing a press release.
There are no clear regulations stipulating that meeting minutes must be taken and published, but as it concerns the public’s right to health and knowledge, the Ministry of Health and Welfare must amend related regulations, it said, adding that the center did not provide a thorough public explanation of how the policy was made — an area that needs improving.
CDC Deputy Director-General Chuang Jen-hsiang (莊人祥) later yesterday said that the “3+11” policy had been implemented since 2020, and it was only tightened to “7+7” during the autumn-winter COVID-19 prevention program launched in December that year.
As the management of airline crew in hotels in other countries greatly improved, such as adding surveillance cameras in hotel hallways and providing one-time hotel room cards, and violations of COVID-19 rules dropped, the quarantine requirement was eased to “5+9,” the CECC spokesman said.
Another review of airline crew management in April last year showed that there were no violations and COVID-19 tests of more than 9,000 crew members in March showed that the vast majority were negative, so the rule was eased to “3+11” on April 15, Chuang said.
The Taipei Zoo on Saturday said it would pursue legal action against a man who was filmed climbing over a railing to tease and feed spotted hyenas in their enclosure earlier that day. In videos uploaded to social media on Saturday, a man can be seen climbing over a protective railing and approaching a ledge above the zoo’s spotted hyena enclosure, before dropping unidentified objects down to two of the animals. The Taipei Zoo in a statement said the man’s actions were “extremely inappropriate and even illegal.” In addition to monitoring the hyenas’ health, the zoo would collect evidence provided by the public
A decision to describe a Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs statement on Singapore’s Taiwan policy as “erroneous” was made because the city-state has its own “one China policy” and has not followed Beijing’s “one China principle,” Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Tien Chung-kwang (田中光) said yesterday. It has been a longstanding practice for the People’s Republic of China (PRC) to speak on other countries’ behalf concerning Taiwan, Tien said. The latest example was a statement issued by the PRC after a meeting between Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財) and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) on the sidelines of the APEC summit
A road safety advocacy group yesterday called for reforms to the driver licensing and retraining system after a pedestrian was killed and 15 other people were injured in a two-bus collision in Taipei. “Taiwan’s driver’s licenses are among the easiest to obtain in the world, and there is no mandatory retraining system for drivers,” Taiwan Vision Zero Alliance, a group pushing to reduce pedestrian fatalities, said in a news release. Under the regulations, people who have held a standard car driver’s license for two years and have completed a driver training course are eligible to take a test
‘SIGN OF DANGER’: Beijing has never directly named Taiwanese leaders before, so China is saying that its actions are aimed at the DPP, a foundation official said National Security Bureau (NSB) Director-General Tsai Ming-yen (蔡明彥) yesterday accused Beijing of spreading propaganda, saying that Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) had singled out President William Lai (賴清德) in his meeting with US President Joe Biden when talking about those whose “true nature” seek Taiwanese independence. The Biden-Xi meeting took place on the sidelines of the APEC summit in Peru on Saturday. “If the US cares about maintaining peace across the Taiwan Strait, it is crucial that it sees clearly the true nature of Lai and the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) in seeking Taiwanese independence, handles the Taiwan question with extra
RSS