LOOKING SOUTHBOUND: The CECC is mulling stricter quarantine measures for travelers from Southeast Asia, where the pandemic appears to be worsening

Taipei Times
Date: Apr 18, 2020
By: Lin Chia-nan / Staff reporter

Taiwan yesterday again registered no new cases of COVID-19 — the third time this week — as the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) said that travelers arriving from Southeast Asia, where the pandemic appears to be getting worse, would be the focus of stricter screening.

With no additional cases reported on Tuesday, Thursday and yesterday, Taiwan maintained its tally of confirmed infections at 395, including six deaths.

Of the 395 cases, 340 were imported and 55 were local infections, while 166 patients have been discharged from quarantine facilities following treatment, the center’s data showed.

Asked if reporting zero new cases again means that the disease is abating in Taiwan, Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中) told a daily news conference at the center in Taipei that.    [FULL  STORY]

Radio Taiwan International
Date: 16 April, 2020
By: Paula Chao

Breathtaking vistas and mouth-watering photos of Taiwanese delicacies don’t sound like much of an “attack,” do they? In today’s Taiwan Insider, find out why people in Taiwan chose this response to counter accusations from WHO chief Tedros Adhanom.  
 

 

JAPAN Forward 
Date: April 16, 2020

On April 8, Vivi Lin, a Taiwanese student studying infectious diseases in the United Kingdom, caused a stir on social media by publishing an open letter to Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the director general of the World Health Organization (WHO).

Lin condemned the director general in plain language for his accusations that the Taiwanese government was encouraging racist comments towards his person.

The video has been viewed more than 1.7 million times on YouTube. With subtitles originally in English and Taiwanese, it has included subtitles in Japanese since April 14. And it is striking a chord with people around the world.

How A Taiwanese Student Fought Back

Perhaps it’s a mark of the COVID-19 crisis that has us all cooped inside following the news, but a Taiwanese undergraduate student in the U.K. decided to fight back at the WHO director general’s unsubstantiated accusations. 

Speaking to Director General Tedros as a Taiwanese, she expressed her disappointment:
[FULL  STORY]

46 Taiwanese associations issue joint statement expressing concern over being mistaken as Chinese nationals

Taiwan News
Date: 2020/04/16
By: Ching-Tse Cheng, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — Close to 50 Taiwanese associations overseas joined together on Wednesday (April 15) to call for the removal of the "Republic of China" from the English name on the Taiwanese passport.

In an effort to prevent Taiwanese from being mistaken as Chinese nationals, 46 Taiwanese groups from abroad issued a joint statement Wednesday and requested the government use "Taiwan" as the only English name on the country's passport. Among the groups were the World Federation of Taiwanese Associations, the Taiwanese Association of America, the Taiwan Association for Human Rights, the European Federation of Taiwan Health Alliance, as well as Taiwanese associations from Germany, Japan, Argentina, Australia, Ireland, and Canada.

The statement pointed out that the term "Republic of China" has caused troubles for many Taiwanese, since it often confuses foreign immigration officers who are unfamiliar with the island nation or its cross-strait relations. It added that the term creates a false impression of the Taiwanese population and damages its interests.

The statement noted that several Taiwanese overseas have encountered problems applying for visas and immigration documents due to the nation's ambiguous English name, with many being listed as citizens of the People's Republic of China. It emphasized that there have been incidents of Taiwanese being denied entry into different countries despite their visa-free agreements with the island nation.    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 04/16/2020
By: Christie Chen

Taipei, CNA (CNA) An article by Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) was included in a special issue published by Time Magazine on Thursday that asked over 50 TIME 100 honorees for their insights on the challenges the world faces navigating the COVID-19 pandemic.

The special issue, titled "Finding Hope," reached out to hundreds of people who have appeared on Time's list of the 100 most influential people, including Former Secretary-General of the United Nations Ban Ki-moon and the 14th Dalai Lama, for their perspectives on the pandemic, according to the American news magazine.

In her article, Tsai wrote that Taiwan's success in preventing a major outbreak of the coronavirus "is no coincidence."

"A combination of efforts by medical professionals, government, private sector and society at large have armored our country's defenses," she wrote, adding that the painful lesson Taiwan learned during the 2003 SARS outbreak put its government and people on high alert early on.
[FULL  STORY]

‘VERY WILLING’: Health authorities voiced their hope in a WHO conference call that Taiwan could participate in more WHO events and share its experiences with other nations

Taipei Times
Date:  Apr 17, 2020
By: Sherry Hsiao / Staff reporter

The Central Epidemic Command Center yesterday reported no new cases of COVID-19 — the second time this week — and confirmed that Taiwanese and WHO experts had exchanged information about the pandemic via telephone a day earlier.

The center last reported zero new cases on Tuesday — the first time since March 9 that no new cases had been reported.

As of the center’s daily news briefing in Taipei yesterday, 155 confirmed patients had been released from isolation, up from 137 on Wednesday, the center said.

That was out of a total of 395 confirmed COVID-19 cases in Taiwan — 340 imported and 55 domestic — out of which six have died, said Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中), who heads the center.    [FULL  STORY]

Radio Taiwan International
Date: 015 April, 2020
By: Shirley Lin

Labor ministry offers jobs for unemployed temp workers[/caption] The COVID-19 outbreak is threatening many livelihoods in Taiwan, especially those of part-time workers. The labor ministry has stepped in with a solution.

The labor ministry is rolling out a plan to help part-time workers and those with atypical employment situations weather the COVID-19 pandemic. The plan kicks into gear this week.

On the first day of the plan, the ministry offered 10,000 temporary jobs to those in need. The hourly pay is NT$158 (US$5.25), with a maximum of 80 working hours per month. Takers can expect to earn up to NT$13,000 (US$433) a month for a total of six months.   [FULL  STORY]

Breitbart
Date: 15 Apr 20204
By: Gabrielle Reyes0

Two United States military aircraft reportedly flew close to Taipei’s southern airspace on Monday, the Taipei Times said.

The newspaper, citing flight charts posted on Twitter, identified a U.S. RC-135W Rivet Joint and a Lockheed P-3 Orion in the airspace north of the South China Sea. Aircraft Spots, a military air movement tracker, posted the images.

The two planes flew at different intervals, with the RC-135W reconnaissance plane spotted first over the Bashi Channel, southwest of Taiwan, according to the flight charts. The Bashi Channel connects the South China Sea with the western Pacific Ocean and runs between Taiwan and the Philippines. China claims nearly the entire South China Sea despite an international court ruling in 2016 that its claims are entirely illegal.

Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense (MND) did not directly confirm the aircraft sightings. However, MND spokesman Major General Shih Shun-wen said Taiwan’s military is closely monitoring the nation’s surrounding waters and airspace.    [FULL  STORY]

Supreme Court Wednesday upheld high court’s ruling, maintained life sentence

Taiwan News
Date: 2020/04/15
By: George Liao, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — Taiwan Supreme Court on Wednesday sentenced Wang Ching-yu (王景

玉) to life in prison for the heinous murder he committed four years ago in Neihu District, Taipei City, CNA reported.

On March 28, 2016, the victim, 4, nicknamed “Little Light Bulb,” and her mother were on their way to an MRT station in Taipei to wait for the girl’s grandfather.

Wang, 36, came from behind the victim, who was riding a trolley bike at the time, and decapitated her with a cleaver in a random attack.

Prosecutors charged the suspect with murder and sought the death penalty. Shilin District Court judges adopted the defense’s argument that the suspect was suffering from a mental illness and sentenced him to life in prison, citing two international human rights conventions that prohibit the death penalty for defendants with disabilities or mental illness.    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 04/15/2020
By: Chang Chien-chung, Chang Ming-hsuan and Matthew Mazzetta

Taipei, April 15 (CNA) Taiwan researchers have developed a new nucleic acid test kit for the virus that causes the COVID-19 disease, and it can produce results in an hour, with 90 percent accuracy, the Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) said Wednesday.

The kit was developed by ITRI researchers in cooperation with the National Defense Medical Center and four private companies, ITRI President Edwin Liu (劉文雄) said, during the unveiling of the test kit at a press conference in Taipei.

Similar in size to a soda can, the test kit is "highly accurate, lightweight, sensitive and efficient," the ITRI said.

The test kit analyzes samples obtained by swabbing the patient's throat or nasal passage to detect the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes the COVID-19 disease, and the result is produced within an hour compared to four hours for other early detection tests, the ITRI said.
[FULL  STORY]