Radio Taiwan International
Date: 31 March, 2020
By: John Van Trieste

Taiwan has confirmed 16 new cases of COVID-19. These latest cases bring the total number Taiwan has recorded so far up to 322.

Fourteen of the new cases are imported, brought in by people with a recent history of travel to the US, the UK, Iceland, France, Switzerland, Thailand, and the Philippines.

The remaining two cases are of domestic origin. The first of these can be traced to contact with another person who had recently been to Turkey and later tested positive for COVID-19. In the second case, the source of infection is unclear. However, health authorities have come up with a list of 13 people who had recently come into contact with this second patient.    [SOURCE]

ABC News
Date: March 31, 2020
By: Max Walden

VIDEO: WHO official Bruce Aylward appears to dodge a question about Taiwan's membership to the health organisation (ABC News)

Along with its Asian neighbours South Korea and Singapore, Taiwan has received near-universal praise for its approach to fighting coronavirus.

Taiwan, which has been praised for its COVID-19 response, says WHO is not passing on information it shares with the body

Taiwan has been denied observer status at the WHO since 2016

Critics say WHO is too influenced by China, which considers Taiwan part of its territory

Despite its proximity to China, where the pandemic started, Taiwan's Centres for Disease Control has reported just over 300 cases of coronavirus.    [FULL  STORY]

Individuals should maintain distance of 1.5m indoors and 1m outdoors, wear masks on public transport: CECC

Taiwan News
Date: 2020/03/31
By: Ching-Tse Cheng, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — To prevent transmission clusters of Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) in Taiwan, the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) has introduced a set of social distancing guidelines for people to follow.

At Tuesday's (March 31) daily press conference on the country's latest COVID-19 cases, Health Minister and CECC head Chen Shih-chung (陳時中) encouraged all individuals to follow the recommendations and maintain a social distance of 1.5m indoors and 1m outdoors. He said that the authorities will finalize the guidelines before announcing them on Wednesday (April 1).

Chen pointed out that people should sit or queue 1m apart from others and avoid dining with friends or coworkers. For areas that are impossible to implement social distancing, such as trains or Metro Rapid Transit (MRT) stations, people must wear masks, he added.

The health minister noted that the government is hoping to treat the guidelines as advice rather than as rules during the initial stages. He urged everyone to comply with the new policy, but he explained that individuals will not be fined unless they intentionally challenge the guidelines, reported the Liberty Times.    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 03/31/2020
By: Chen Chun-hua, Ku Chuan and Matthew Mazzetta

Taipei, March 31 (CNA) The Taiwan government's response to the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic could reach as much as NT$1 trillion (US$33 billion), Premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) told a legislative hearing on Tuesday.

Such a figure would more adequately reflect the global nature of the crisis than the NT$60 billion special budget the Executive Yuan proposed in February, when the impact of the COVID-19 outbreak was mainly limited to China, Su said.

In an interpellation session at the Legislative Yuan, opposition Kuomintang (KMT) Legislator Lee De-wei (李德維) asked Su to detail the timing and scale of response measures being planned by the government, inquiring whether it would seek anything on the scale of Singapore's recently announced S$48 billion (US$33.65 billion) stimulus plan.

"The overall scale will likely be around NT$1 trillion," Su said, arguing that the size of various countries' response measures will vary based on a variety of factors.    [FULL  STORY]

Taipei Times
Date:  Apr 01, 2020
By: Chen Wei-tzu and William Hetherington / Staff reporter, with staff writer

Senior judges yesterday met to discuss the constitutionality of a law that makes adultery a criminal offense, before being ordered by Judicial Yuan President Hsu Tzong-li (許宗力) to set a date for a constitutional interpretation within the next month.

The judges met to discuss Article 239 of the Criminal Code on offenses against marriage and family, after 18 judges had called for a constitutional interpretation of the issue.

Taipei District Court Judge Lin Meng-huang (林孟皇) said that while he had previously tried adultery cases and never questioned the law, his feelings changed when trying a case last year involving baseball star Wang Chuan-jia (王傳家).

During that case evidence was presented showing Wang naked in bed with a female fan surnamed Tu (杜), which later became public, and Lin felt this was a violation of Wang’s personal privacy, he said.    [FULL  STORY]

Radio Taiwan International
Date: 30 March, 2020
By: Natalie Tso

President Tsai Ing-wen says she believes Taiwan joining the World Health Organization (WHO) would not only benefit Taiwan, it would also benefit the whole world. She was responding to a question on Monday about a recent statement from the WHO regarding Taiwan. 

The WHO said that it was up to WHO members, not the organization’s officials, to decide whether Taiwan could join the WHO. That statement followed criticism of WHO Assistant Director General Bruce Aylward, who evaded a question about Taiwan’s membership during an interview with Radio Television Hong Kong journalist Yvonne Tong. 

President Tsai said, “We hope that after this epidemic, other countries can have a better understanding of Taiwan’s abilities and what it can contribute and really consider allowing Taiwan to become part of the global epidemic prevention system. This would help ensure the health of the Taiwan people, and the world’s medical care systems would also be better off with Taiwan’s participation.”    [FULL  STORY]

Man who had traveled to Spain, woman with chronic conditions 2 latest Wuhan coronavirus deaths

Taiwan News
Date: 2020/03/30
By: Keoni Everington, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — A female diabetic and a male traveler to Spain were announced on Monday (March 30) as Taiwan's latest deaths from the Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.

During its daily press conference on Monday (March 30), the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) announced that a woman in her 50s and a man in his 60s were the latest fatalities caused by COVID-19. The woman is believed to be part of a cluster infection of nine in a hospital, while the man had recently traveled to Spain.

The woman had a history of diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and other chronic diseases. On Feb. 14, she was hospitalized and treated for hypoglycemia and general fatigue, but she had not yet developed any respiratory symptoms at the time.    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date:\ 03/30/2020
By: Wu Po-wei and Joseph Yeh

Taipei, March 30 (CNA) Taiwan and Australia have agreed to exchange raw materials in the near future to help each other fight the new coronavirus pandemic, the Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOFA) announced Monday.

In a Facebook post, the MOEA said Australia has agreed to provide 1 million liters of edible alcohol to be turned into 4.22 million 300 milliliter bottles of 75 percent-alcohol hand sanitizer.

In return, Taiwan will provide 3 metric tons of non-woven fabric to Australia, the key raw material used in surgical masks, when its production capacity has stabilized, the MOEA said. The MOEA did not say when this exchange of materials will take place.

According to the ministry, Taiwan relies heavily on imported alcohol, with around 90 percent of its total alcohol supply coming from Australia.

Taiwan currently has a sufficient alcohol supply, the MOEA said, and its two main alcohol-based hand sanitizer suppliers, Taiwan Tobacco and Liquor Corp. and Taiwan Sugar Corp., have daily outputs of 200,000 300 ml bottles and 20,000 300 ml bottles of alcohol-based hand sanitizer, respectively.    [FULL  STORY]