It’s official: The WHO is calling it a “pandemic”.

Radio Taiwan International
Date: 12 March, 2020
By: Paula Chao

Taiwan knew that something was coming back in late December and it worked quickly to stop the new coronavirus in its tracks. In fact, Vice President Chen Chien-jen, the man who guided Taiwan through the SARS epidemic of 2003, says that the WHO’s designation of the outbreak as a “pandemic” is too little, too late. 

In today’s show, find out about some of the 100+ action plans that have kept Taiwan safe, and have drawn the attention of global news media like the Guardian, Aljazeera, NBC and VOX.
[FULL  STORY]

Breitbart
Date: 12 Mar 2020
By: John Hayward

Taiwan’s remarkably low number of coronavirus infections – less than 50 in total despite the island’s proximity to the outbreak area and extensive travel and commerce with China – has been credited to swift and effective action when the epidemic began, starting with a firm travel ban on China and the semi-autonomous territories of Hong Kong and Macau.

Deutsche Welle noted on Wednesday that experts initially predicted Taiwan would be one of the hardest-hit victims of the epidemic, but it achieved one of the lowest rates of coronavirus infection in the world.

Many factors placed Taiwan at high risk, including dense urban populations, a high number of travelers from China, the coronavirus outbreak erupting during the Lunar New Year holiday, and a large population of Taiwanese citizens living or working in China. Taiwan gets about 2.7 million visitors from China annually and has well over a million citizens either working in China or living there full-time, measured against a total Taiwanese population of 23 million.

Taiwan benefited from its National Health Command Center (NHCC), an agency established after the 2002-2003 SARS epidemic and explicitly intended to help contain future disease outbreaks.    [FULL  STORY]

Taiwan News
Date: 2020/03/12
By:  Central News Agency

China has pressured media outlets in Taiwan to produce news in line with its political priorities, according to the latest human rights report released by the United States Wednesday (March 11).

The Country Reports on Human Rights Practices, issued annually by the U.S. State Department, analyzed 199 countries and regions in 2019.

The section on Taiwan covers the country's judicial system, government transparency, workers' rights, freedom of expression, citizens' involvement in politics, and cases of discrimination and abuse toward minorities.

Regarding Taiwan's press freedom, the report said that independent media outlets were active in the country and freely expressed their views without restriction from the Taiwanese government.    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 03/12/2020
By: Lin Ke-lun, Chang Ming-hsuan and Matthew Mazzetta

Taiwanese evacuees from China’s Hubei Province are transported to quarantine facilities after arriving at Taoyuan International Airport in early Wednesday.

Taipei, March 12 (CNA) After more than a month of negotiations with Chinese authorities, Taiwan this week carried out the second wave of evacuation of its citizens from Hubei Province in China, the epicenter of the COVID-19 coronavirus disease, in a process that has been complicated by limited medical resources and apparent distrust on both sides.

When Beijing on Jan. 23 decided to lock down Hubei to prevent further spread of the virus, more than 1,000 Taiwanese nationals were stranded in the province, which has a population of 57 million and now accounts for 67,000 of the 124,000 COVID-19 cases worldwide.

By the end of January, countries including the United States, Japan and Singapore had arranged charter flights to evacuate citizens from the region. According to Taiwan's Mainland Affairs Council (MAC), however, Chinese authorities failed to respond to numerous attempts to coordinate an evacuation of Taiwanese nationals, beginning on Jan. 26.

In a Jan. 30 press conference, MAC Deputy Minister and Spokesman Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said his agency had begun seeking the assistance of Taiwanese business associations in the Hubei region, given China's refusal to engage directly.    [FULL  STORY]

Taipei Times
Date: Mar 13, 2020
By: Chang Hsuan-che and Jake Chung / Staff reporter, with staff writer

The WHO’s designation of COVID-19 as a global pandemic came too late, Vice President Chen Chien-jen (陳建仁) said yesterday.

Chen, an epidemiologist by training, made the remark at a tree-planting event in Taichung.

On Tuesday, Chen said on Facebook that WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus’ warning to nations that the mortality rate of the disease was increasing was empty, as Tedros failed to look at individual nations’ testing policies.

“When you see the number of confirmed patients decreasing and the mortality rate increasing, you should pay attention to how that nation is conducting tests,” Chen said.

The number of confirmed cases is related not only to the nation’s population, but also virus test coverage, he said.    [FULL  STORY]

‘PERSONAL USE’: The suspect said he learned to cultivate cannabis from online sources and purchased equipment online to grow the plants for his personal consumption

Taipei Times
Date: Mar 12, 2020
By: Jason Pan / Staff reporter

A New Taipei City man who was last week detained on allegations of growing cannabis plants and producing dried cannabis products was yesterday released after posting bail of NT$100,000 (US$3,323), officials said.

New Taipei City prosecutors and the Criminal Investigation Bureau coordinated police units from various jurisdictions to raid a rented apartment in Sindian District (新店), officials told a news conference.

Police found 19 cannabis plants, 400g of dried cannabis leaves and flowers, and a set of equipment and machines for the cultivation, drying and packaging of cannabis products, New Taipei City orosecutor Lee Ping-chi (李秉錡) said.

The suspect, a 24-year-old unemployed man surnamed Lin (林), faces charges of contravening Article 12 of the Narcotics Hazard Prevention Act (毒品危害防制條例), which stipulates that “cultivating cannabis with the intention to supply the manufacturing of narcotics” can be punished with at least five years in prison and a fine of up to NT$5 million.   [FULL  STORY]

Radio Taiwan International
Date: 11 March, 2020
By: Shirley Lin

Taiwan has reported an additional case of COVID-19. This brings the total number of cases confirmed in Taiwan since the outbreak began to 48.

The Central Epidemic Command Center said Wednesday that the patient is a 30-year-old woman who recently returned from a trip to the UK. After returning to Taiwan on Sunday, she complained of dizziness and headache, later developing a cough and a fever. She tested positive for COVID-19 on Wednesday.

The command center says it is tracking passengers on the same flight, along with nine family members she has had contact with since her return.    [FULL  STORY]

Postcards from an infected world: In Taiwan, we are learning that the best way to fight coronavirus is with trust

New Statesman Amerca
Date: 11 March 2020
By: Erin Hale

When coronavirus erupted, many predicted Taiwan would be among the worst-hit nations. But thanks to the government’s fast reactions disaster seems to have been avoided – and public confidence restored.

The mood in Taipei has lifted considerably since coronavirus first broke out over the Lunar New Year holiday in late January. Pundits were predicting that Taiwan would be one of the hardest-hit places beyond China, based on its past experience with the Sars virus outbreak in 2002-03 – when 150,000 were quarantined – but we appear to have turned a corner. 

These days, more people wear masks than they did before the holiday – particularly on public transport – but at the weekends there is a clear sense of life going on as normal. It’s very common to see people gathering in the park to have a picnic, shopping, visiting a hot spring hotel (a popular winter activity) or even eating at one of Taipei’s many crowded night markets. Following a two-week delay to the start of the spring term, schools and universities reopened at the end of February.

One noticeable difference since the virus’s outbreak is that you are now required to have your temperature checked and your hands sprayed with alcohol at the entrances to many buildings. Another change is that the number of tourists,  particularly tour groups from China, is visibly reduced.

“The hotel industry is suffering,” says Kathy Cheng, a writer and consultant who recently surveyed the impact of coronavirus on businesses for her popular blog Tricky Taipei. Cheng found many hotels with fewer than ten rooms occupied, while walking tours and other excursions were struggling with large numbers of cancellations.    [FULL  STORY]

Chinese refusal to provide protective clothing to Taiwanese leads to standoff, 30 last-minute passengers turned away

Taiwan News
Date: 2020/03/11
By: Keoni Everington, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — During preparations to transport Taiwanese evacuees from Wuhan on Tuesday and Wednesday (March 10 and 11), Chinese authorities refused Taiwan's request that the passengers on a China Eastern Airlines jet be provided protective clothing, and 30 last-minute applicants were turned away.

The odyssey of the two charter jets selected to evacuate a total of 361 Taiwanese nationals out of Wuhan is a study in contrasts. After over a month of tense cross-strait negotiations, including a dispute over which country's airlines would carry out the evacuations, the two sides came to a compromise in which there would be two flights, with one flight by Taiwan's China Airlines (CAL) and another by China Eastern Airlines (CEA).

On the flight operated by CAL, Taiwan followed the strict protocols of the "Yokohama model" established during the evacuation of Taiwanese travelers from the ill-fated Diamond Princess. Each passenger was not only provided a face mask and protective clothing but was also carefully placed at a specific distance from others.

However, when Taiwanese authorities requested that passengers boarding the CEA jet also be provided protective clothing, Chinese officials insisted that there was "no need" for such gear and that face masks were sufficient, reported the Liberty Times. In addition, finding that there were still some empty seats on the plane, Chinese officials tried to add 30 more passengers at the last minute who were not on the finalized list of evacuees.    [FULL  STORY

Focus Taiwan
Date: 03/11/2020
By: Liang Pei-chi and Joseph Yeh

Taipei, March 11 (CNA) Taipei handed down a maximum NT$1 million (US$32,965) fine

Wednesday to a man who was found to have broken his quarantine restrictions, Deputy Mayor Huang Shan-shan (黃珊珊) said that day.

The man is the first to receive the highest possible fine in the capital since the maximum penalty for such violation was raised from NT$150,000 to NT$1 million last month as a deterrent to prevent the spread of COVID-19 coronavirus, according to the city government.

Huang told reporters that the man had returned to Taiwan from the Chinese city of Xiamen on Monday.

Upon his arrival at the Taipei Songshan International Airport, however, he refused to fill in the required health declaration form that requires people to write down where they will be staying for the compulsory 14-day home quarantine, according to Huang.    [FULL  STORY]