Radio Taiwan International
Date: Natalie Tso

Classrooms in New Taipei City increase the distance between students' desks (CNA photo)[/caption] The government is promoting awareness of stricter social distancing guidelines amidst concerns over the growing COVID-19 pandemic.

Taiwan has new social distancing guidelines. Central Epidemic Command Center official Chi-Kung Ho explains the details of the new rules that are aimed to prevent a major outbreak.

Find new ways other than a handshake to say “Hello”. There are a few principles to remember. First, keep a 1.5-meter distance from others indoors, and 1-meter distance outdoors. But if you wear a mask, you can sit closer.

Second, wear a mask in enclosed and crowded spaces.  Don’t talk if you’re in an elevator or sharing a meal. If you want to talk after a meal, put on your mask.    [FULL  STORY]

Gulf Today
Date: April 7, 2020
By: David Pierson, Tribune News Service

In a few awkward seconds, Bruce Aylward, a senior official at the World Health Organisation, laid

bare the flaws and pressures faced by the global health agency charged with leading the response to the worst pandemic in over a century.

A video that’s since gone viral shows the distinguished Canadian epidemiologist dodging a reporter’s question about why Taiwan is not a member of the WHO. Aylward twitches and blinks. He says he cannot hear the journalist. When she offers to repeat the question, he asks her to change the subject. When she persists, he hangs up on the video chat with a Skype chime thud.

Aylward is a veteran of the United Nations’ health agency, responsible for preventing millions of children from contracting polio and stanching the Ebola epidemic in West Africa. But the agency’s limitations were starkly sketched at the mention of Taiwan. An island nation of 24 million crucial to the fight against the coronavirus, Taiwan has been blocked from joining the WHO because China considers it a renegade province.

The video exchange, health experts say, reinforced how powerful national interests are overshadowing shared interests at a time when the agency is needed to marshal a global response to an outbreak that emanated from China and is threatening to kill millions.
[FULL  STORY]

Material scientist Peter Tsai developed technology needed for N95 mask production

Taiwan News
Date: 2020/04/07
By: Ching-Tse Cheng, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — As the Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) continues to claim new victims around the world, many medical workers have relied on the N95 respirator masks to lower their infection risks.

Unbeknownst to them, the inventor of these masks is actually Taiwanese.

As a mechanical engineer and material scientist, Dr. Peter Tsai (蔡秉燚) is accredited with inventing the electrostatic charging technology needed to produce N95 masks, the highest quality medical masks known to health professionals. Tsai, who retired from the University of Tennessee in 2019 after teaching for 35 years, holds 12 patents in the U.S., Storm Media reports.

According to ETtoday, the "N" in the N95 stands for "not resistant to oil" while the "95" implies the masks' ability to block at least 95 percent of 0.3 micron particles, which may include viral droplets, dust, pollen, and air pollutants from factories and cars. Tsai's invention enables regular masks to filter out ten times more air particles — essential for frontline medical workers dealing with continuous viral exposure.    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 04/07/2020
By: Chen Yun-yu and Matthew Mazzetta

Taipei, April 7 (CNA) The Netherlands Trade and Investment Office on Monday thanked Taiwan for

its pledged donation of surgical face masks, saying that "working together is the only way we'll get through" the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic.

In an interview with CNA, Representative Guy Wittich said Taiwan's April 1 announcement that it will donate 10 million masks to international partners, including 5.6 million to European Union member states, came as a surprise, after he was unable to arrange an emergency shipment of masks requested by the Utrecht city government.

I "asked MOFA (Taiwan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs) whether they know any suppliers of masks and whether it's possible that Taiwan waives the export ban," Wittich said, referring to the government's Jan. 23 move to reserve all face mask production for domestic use.

"After some time, I gave up sending formal requests, so I was really surprised to know about the donation," he said.    [FULL  STORY]

SMALL INCREASE: Three new imported cases of COVID-19 were reported, one of whom returned to Taiwan on the same flight as 10 other previously reported cases

Taipei Times
Date: Apr 08, 2020
By: Lee I-chia / Staff reporter

The Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) yesterday disclosed the nation’s capacity for treating COVID-19 patients, adding that it has 34 facilities capable of analyzing 3,800 tests per day.

The global outbreak of COVID-19 is still severe, and clustered infections in local communities or healthcare facilities have been reported in many countries, said Deputy Minister of Health and Welfare Hsueh Jui-yuan (薛瑞元), who heads the CECC’s medical response division.

The center has six main strategies to ensure that Taiwan’s healthcare system has sufficient medical capacity, he said.

While about 1,500 tests are being performed every day, the nation’s “expanded COVID-19 testing capacity” has reached about 3,800 tests per day, which can be analyzed at 34 testing facilities — 16 in northern Taiwan, 10 in southern Taiwan, seven in central Taiwan and one in eastern Taiwan, he said.    [FULL  STORY]

Radio Taiwan International
Date: 06 April, 2020
By: Andrew Ryan

Reporters jostling to report on late-breaking news is a familiar sight in Taiwan. But in the time of coronavirus, this could be a thing of the past. 

Taiwan's government is recommending that people maintain a 1.5 meter distance indoors and one meter outside. That means press conferences can no longer be held the way they were in the past: in tight quarters.     [FULL  STORY]

SupChina
Date: April 6, 2020
By: Noah Weber
Illustration by Julia YH

Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文 Cài Yīngwén) calls the coronavirus two different names. On her English-language Twitter and in the English portion of an April 1 address, she has used the term coined by the World Health Organization (WHO): COVID-19. But in Chinese during that same address, she called it Wǔhàn fèiyán (武漢肺炎) — “Wuhan pneumonia.” The shift between terms reflects a debate in Taiwan between Tsai’s Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and leaders of the Kuomintang (KMT) opposition, as well as between Taiwan and the People’s Republic of China.

Like Tsai, I have also thought carefully about what to call the novel coronavirus in Chinese. In a mid-January WeChat post, I went with “Wuhan pneumonia,” but much has changed in the two and a half months since. I’ve deleted that post because, among other reasons, I no longer stand behind the term “Wuhan pneumonia” — it just makes no sense for me to perpetuate the association of a borderless disease with a specific region.

Still, Tsai’s use of “Wuhan pneumonia” is not the same as American president Donald Trump’s use of “Chinese Virus,” and I can understand why she might choose to do so for a domestic audience. Let me explain.

Naming conventions for the novel coronavirus have evolved in both Chinese and English, and the debate continues as to what it should be called. The Chinese state-run People’s Daily used the term “Wuhan pneumonia” in early January, as in “散步武漢肺炎謠言8人被依法處理” (sànbù Wǔhàn fèiyán yáoyán 8 rén bèi yīfǎ chǔlǐ — “Eight People Face Legal Consequences for Spreading Rumors on Wuhan Pneumonia”), and, “武漢肺炎病例初判為新型冠狀病毒” (Wǔhàn fèiyán bìnglì chū pàn wèi xīnxíng guānzhuàng bìngdú — “Early Investigation Suggests Wuhan Pneumonia a Novel Coronavirus”). This publication itself headlined a January 6 article, “Wuhan’s Mystery Pneumonia Spreads.” Some Western news outlets used the phrase “Wuhan coronavirus” in early headlines to distinguish COVID-19 from other coronaviruses like SARS and MERS. These headlines were written at a time when there were very few cases of the virus, and nearly all of them were known to be in Wuhan; they do not read as stigmatizing in their context.
[FULL  STORY]

Taiwan CDC tells homebodies, those who traveled over holiday to avoid each other for next 14 days.

Taiwan News
Date: 2020/04/06
By: Keoni Everington, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — While the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) advises those who went on trips during the Qingming holiday to monitor themselves for symptoms for 14 days, a Taiwanese doctor is recommending those who stayed home to avoid these excursionists during the same period.

As fears mount that the Qingming festival holiday may have led to a new wave of Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) cases in Taiwan, the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) on Monday (April 6) issued an advisory calling on persons who visited crowded areas during the four-day holiday to begin 14 days of self-health management. These holidaymakers are advised to wear masks, wash hands frequently, monitor their temperature, and avoid public places as much as possible over the next two weeks.

In a text warning issued on Saturday (April 4), the CECC stressed that anyone who had traveled to the Pingtung County beach resort town of Kenting or 10 other popular tourist spots, in particular, should notify their schools or superiors at work and preferably work from home for the next two weeks. Those who believe they are developing symptoms of the disease are advised to don a mask, call 1922, and seek medical treatment immediately.

In response to public concern about which measures to follow after their vacation, Hsieh Tsung-hsueh (謝宗學), director of the Chung Shan Medical University Hospital's Department of Pediatric Emergency Care, wrote five major steps to take after the holiday for ETtoday:
[FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Dater: 04/06/2020
By: Wu Ruei-chi and Joseph Yeh

Taipei, April 6 (CNA) Two people found dead in a northern Taoyuan apartment in an apparent double suicide while on compulsory 14-day quarantine have tested negative for the COVID-19 coronavirus, city prosecutors said Monday.

A 45-five-year-old male surnamed Wu (吳) and a 40-year-old female surnamed Chu (邱) were both found dead in their shared rental apartment on Friday night after local authorities visited them because they were unable to reach the two as part of regular checkups during home quarantine, the Taoyuan District Prosecutors Office said in a press release.

Their bodies were found together in one room, with forensic testing showing that the two apparently committed suicide by burning charcoal in an enclosed space and died of carbon monoxide poisoning. There was no suicide note.

As a precaution during the pandemic, a forensic expert from the prosecutors office took nasal swabs from the two bodies, both of which tested negative for COVID-19.   [FULL  STORY]