Radio Taiwan International
Date: 21 April, 2020
By: Natalie Tso

Taiwan confirmed 3 new cases from the Panshih navy vessel on Tuesday, bringing the total of COVID-19 cases to 425. 

The cases included two men and one woman in their 20s and 30s who didn’t test positive until their second test.  A navy intern experienced symptoms on March 30 and lived in the same room with cases 396 and 397. He reported his symptoms on April 18 and tested negative. He then tested positive on April 20. 

The second case is a female sailor in her 30s. She had symptoms on April 5 which later disappeared.  When in quarantine, she tested negative on April 18, but later tested positive on April 20. The third case saw symptoms beginning March 23 but tested negative on April 18. He tested positive in a second test.
[FULL  STORY]

ERR News
Date: April 21, 2020

On Tuesday, 80,000 masks sent from Taiwan arrived in Estonia to help protect people against the coronavirus (COVID-19) which will be distributed on the country's western islands.

The 80,000 surgical masks were sent as a donation from Tawain to the Estonian Red Cross (Eesti Punane Rist). They will be used in hospitals, nursing homes and the food industry.  

The organization wrote on it's Facebook group the donation was carried out in cooperation with the Estonian-Taiwan Friendship Group of the Riigikogu.

The president of the Estonian Red Cross Harri Viik and the secretary general Arvi Perv along with Kalle Laanet, Chairman of the Estonian-Taiwan Friendship Group, accepted the donation at the Red Cross office in Tallinn on Tuesday.      [FULL  STORY]

Island residents protest against YouTube, saying, 'Is it very difficult to respect cultural differences?'

Taiwan News
Date: 2020/04/21
By: George Liao, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — YouTube has restored a video of Taiwanese indigenous children dancing in traditional thongs, after deleting it on the grounds that its content was a breach of the terms and conditions stipulated by the video sharing site.

CNA reported on Tuesday (April 21) that the video posted by Yan Zi-yu (顏子矞), a teacher at the Yayu Elementary School in Lanyu Township off the coast of Taitung, had been taken down by YouTube, which left Yan astonished and baffled and sparked protests from island residents.

Yan received a message from YouTube on April 16, which said that the site had deleted the video after receiving complaints, the report said.

The teacher said, “I guess they deemed the scantily dressed children to be a violation of social norms,” filing a complaint of his own to YouTube.    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 04/21/2020
By: Elizabeth Hsu

Taipei, April 21 (CNA) Taiwan was ranked 43rd on the World Press Freedom Index compiled by Reporters Without Borders (RSF) for 2020, down one notch from the previous year.

Despite the regression, Taiwan is one of just four countries in the Asia-Pacific region that fall in the "good" and "fairly good" categories of the index, following New Zealand (ninth), Australia (26th) and South Korea (42nd), according to the 2020 index published Tuesday.

In its analysis on press freedom in Taiwan, the RSF said that political interference there "is rare and less tolerated, but Taiwan's journalists are suffering from a very polarized media environment dominated by sensationalism and the pursuit of profit."

"Although President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) has said she wants to continue developing press freedom in Taiwan, few concrete measures have been taken to improve journalistic editorial independence and encourage the media to raise the quality of public debate," the France-based international organization said.    [FULL  STORY]

Taipei Times
Date: Apr 22, 2020
By: Huang Ming-tang and William Hetherington / Staff reporter, with staff writer

YouTube has deleted a video showing Tao elementary-school students on Orchid Island (Lanyu, 蘭嶼) dancing in traditional attire after it was erroneously flagged for “obscenity,” the children’s teacher said yesterday.

Yayu Elementary School teacher Yan Tzu-yu (顏子矞) said that when he logged into the school’s YouTube account recently, he was greeted with a message saying that a video he uploaded in 2018 of the children performing a Tao dance to mark the construction of a new classroom had been removed.

The video was flagged by a user, and after a review by YouTube staff was found to have breached the platform’s community standards, the message read.

Yan said the misunderstanding likely stemmed from the Tao clothing worn by the children in the video.

Traditional clothing for Tao males is a cloth tied around the lower body in a manner resembling a modern-day thong, but does not carry any of the implications of a thong in Tao culture, he said.
[FULL  STORY]

Radio Taiwan International
Date: 20 April, 2020
By: Leslie Liao

A hospital in southern Taiwan has developed a rapid test kit that can detect COVID-19 in as little as 15 minutes. Initial results are promising.

Poke your finger, draw some blood, and wait 15 minutes. That’s all it takes to get a result in this new COVID-19 test. It’s the work of Kaohsiung Municipal Siaogang Hospital in southern Taiwan. 

The instrument is very sensitive, and can detect even a small viral load. Siaogang Hospital Superintendent Kuo Chao-Hung says that the device uses light to detect traces of the COVID-19 virus. 

The test is nearly 100% accurate. Test data can be uploaded via a smartphone app, giving authorities a better idea of the disease’s spread.

The rapid test kit is still undergoing clinical trials. Once Taiwan's Centers for Disease Control approves it, then it can be mass-produced.     [FULL  STORY]

Decisive action, speed and penalties stand in contrast to Japan's red tape

Nikkei Asian Review
Date: April 21, 2020
By: Yosuke Onchi and Kernsaku Ihara, Nikkei staff writers

SEOUL/TAIPEI — South Korea and Taiwan have won praise and attention for fast and effective responses to the novel coronavirus that have so far allowed them to avoid the sort of damage seen elsewhere despite their proximity to the disease's original epicenter of mainland China.

South Korea has seen over 10,600 confirmed COVID-19 cases so far but reported just 13 new cases on Monday. Taiwan has just over 400 cases in total, with six deaths. Authorities in both places say they consider the outbreak to be under control.

Both share similar approaches to combating the outbreak, based on strong central authorities born of lessons learned after the deadly severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) epidemic of 2003 and 2004, and the Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) in 2015 that killed 38 people in South Korea. 

The Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is a ministerial-level government arm that is legally authorized in a public health emergency to request action from government agencies. The requests, in effect, carry the same weight as government directives.    [FULL  STORY]

City is enforcing crowd control to limit simultaneous boardwalk visitors to 900Taiwan News
Date: 2020/04/20
By: George Liao, Agencies

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — The Taichung City Government has put in place measures to ensure that visits to the Gaomei Wetland (高美濕地) are safe during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a news release published on Taichung Travel Net.

Gaomei Wetland, which boasts “the most beautiful sunsets in Taiwan,” has emerged as a popular attraction in recent years, attracting about 1.6 million visitors every year.

The city is enforcing crowd control measures at the boardwalk so that the number of simultaneous visitors does not exceed 900. In addition, people entering the Gaomei Wetland Visitor Center must undergo a temperature check and wear masks.

Taichung Tourism and Travel Bureau Director Lin Hsiao-chi (林筱淇) said that the wetland has an area of 700 hectares, and the uniquely designed boardwalk, wind turbines, and picturesque sunset have all won wide acclaim. The city encourages the public to visit the scenic fresh air destination, the director added.
[FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 04/20/2020
By: Wu Po-wei, Pan Tzu-yu and Chiang Yi-ching

Taipei, April 20 (CNA) The number of furloughed employees in Taiwan topped 15,000 last Friday due to the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, Deputy Labor Minister Liu Shih-hao (劉士豪) said Monday.

As of April 17, 636 companies had unpaid leave programs, while a total of 15,634 workers had agreed to go on furlough, nearly double the number of workers reported to be on furlough as of April 1, according to Liu.

That is the most for any reporting period since the formal unpaid leave system began in 2011 under which companies must reach furlough agreements with workers and pay them at least the minimum wage (currently NT$23,800).

At the peak of the global financial crisis in 2008 and 2009, before the formal reporting system was put in place, the number of workers on unpaid leave peaked at nearly 239,000 in February 2009.
[FULL  STORY]