title: UK man’s giant lasagna joke audio clip goes viral

content_text:
PASTA PUNCHLINE:
 Billy McLean’s spoof poking fun at misinformation on the coronavirus was meant for friends, but is being eaten up by frazzled Britons

It started off as an ad-libbed joke for some friends in a soccer banter group and ended up being heard by vast numbers of Britons within hours.

However, the man responsible for a joke WhatsApp audio clip that claimed the UK Ministry of Defence was about to requisition Wembley Stadium to cook the world’s biggest lasagna has said his viral success also shows the risks of believing everything that gets sent to you on the messaging service.

Billy McLean, a 29-year-old Londoner who works in software sales, came forward to the Guardian to identify himself as the creator of the much-shared clip mocking the coronavirus misinformation and rumors that have spread over WhatsApp in recent days.

Parodying the widespread viral posts claiming to be from friends-of-friends who are supposedly government officials with the inside track on No. 10’s pandemic plans, McLean ad-libbed an audio recording in a matter-of-fact voice.

“My sister, her boyfriend’s brother works for the Ministry of Defence and one of the things that they’re doing to prepare … is building a massive lasagne. At the moment, as we speak, they’re building the massive lasagne sheets,” he said.

“They’re putting the underground heating at Wembley on, that’s going to bake the lasagne, and then they’re putting the roof across and that’s going to recreate the oven, and then what they’re going to do is lift it up with drones and cut off little portions and drop it off to people’s houses,” he said.

He sent the clip, at 1pm on Thursday, to a group of 30 friends he plays soccer with. Some of them then forwarded it to friends and relatives in other groups.

Hours later, it was being sent back to McLean by friends who had no idea it was his voice, having traveled around the world in the intervening hours.

“It was just a one take. I sent it to the football group, my mum and the girl that I’m trying to date,” McLean said. “It went around the football group. Then I got people that I know forwarding it to me, not knowing it was me, or forwarding it to me asking if I’d heard it. Ex-girlfriends were coming out of the woodwork asking was it me.”

By Friday morning, the Football Association was able to confirm that, yes, it was indeed aware of the clip but, no, it had no plans to turn the English national soccer stadium into a giant lasagna dish.

The spread of the clip shows both the enormous power of WhatsApp to spread unsourced information at speed and Britons’ need for something to laugh at in a grim period.

WhatsApp’s lack of an ability to track or fac-check material means that the clip was arriving in people’s messaging service as an unlabeled audio clip.

Although there is no way to measure its audience, it is likely to have been listened to by millions of people within hours. Many more have since heard it after it was uploaded to other services.

McLean suggested that people needed to resist the urge to share unsourced information about the coronavirus, especially those claiming to be from insiders.

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references: Facebook 臉書

taiwan-subdivisions: 南區 成功 高雄

content_text:
Nanning High School finds students’ 33-year-old handwriting on blackboard
多年前值日生留名舊黑板 南寧高中急尋「雲萍、茹芬」

Recently, during preparations to demolish an old school building, staff at Nanning High School in Tainan’s South District discovered an old piece of blackboard, on which was written the names of two sudents on duty — Tsai Yun-ping and Tsai Ju-fen — on that day, 33 years ago, in the school’s Junior High Division. On March 16, Tainan City Councilor Lu Wei-yin, school principal Su Tsung-li and Nanning parents’ association president Lin Ho-ling held a news conference with the theme “Tsai Yun-ping, Tsai Ju-fen, where are you?”, hoping to trace the owners of the two names written on the blackboard all those years ago and calling them back to their alma mater to remember the old times. That same evening the two had got in contact and said they would arrange a time to visit their old school.

According to Su, the school is currently in the process of rebuilding the school buildings, and the prodigious amounts of documents and records of students who have graduated in the past have already been packed away. The school buildings are due to be demolished at the end of the month, and so there was no time to search through the old records, and the school really wanted to find the two alumni before the month is out.

Su says that the Nanning High School was founded in 1960 as Nanning Junior High, and the Senior High School Division was established in 2003. There are several old school buildings on the campus that are over 50 years old and, because of damage sustained during the 2016 southern Taiwan earthquake, they are gradually being knocked down and rebuilt. The other day, when they were in the process of pulling down one of the old buildings, they discovered an old blackboard which still had the handwritten names of two students who were on duty on Sept. 26, 1987. This rather unusual find was quite an important historical document for the school.

Nanning High School principal Su Tsung-li, Tainan City Councilor Lu Wei-yin and Nanning parents’ association president Lin Ho-ling, left to right, hold a news conference in Tainan last week, asking for information on the whereabouts of two former students whose names were found written on a piece of blackboard from years ago.
南寧高中校長蘇宗立（左起）、台南市議員呂維胤和南寧家長會長林鶴翎召開「尋人啟事」記者會，期盼能找回當年寫在黑板上的兩名值日生。
 Photo: Tsai Wen-chu, Liberty Times
照片：自由時報記者蔡文居

For Su, the old school buildings hold memories for all people connected to Nanning school, and at the beginning of this month they had held a series of commemorative events to mark the impending demolition of the structures, and had managed to call back almost 500 alumni for various generations to return to the alma mater and relive their memories. He hopes that should Tsai Yun-ping and Tsai Ju-fen be able to return to Nanning, they would be able to bid farewell to their old school buildings and reminisce about their school days.

After the story about their search was reported in the media, a teacher at the school, Chang Chia-ting, shared the report on his Facebook page and, with the kind help of other alumni, they had traced the two Nanning classmates, who got in contact through the Facebook pages of Lu and Chang, that same evening. Lu says that the two are both working, one in Tainan and the other in Kaohisung, and they were both expected to get in contact with the school this week, and to possibly arrange a time to visit the school on the weekend.

(Translated by Paul Cooper)

A piece of blackboard from Nanning High School still bearing the names of students on duty, Tsai Yun-ping and Tsai Ju-fen. The school authorities were hoping that the two would contact their alma mater as soon as possible.
南寧高中舊黑板仍留有當年擔任值日生的蔡雲萍和蔡茹芬兩位校友的字跡，校方盼兩人能盡速與母校連繫。
 Photo: Tsai Wen-chu, Liberty Times
照片：自由時報記者蔡文居

台南市南區南寧高中日前進行舊校舍拆除作業時，意外發現舊黑板上竟留有三十三年前值日生蔡雲萍和蔡茹芬兩位國中部校友的字跡。市議員呂維胤、南寧高中校長蘇宗立和南寧家長會會長林鶴翎三月十六日在共同召開「尋人啟事」記者會，齊聲喊「雲萍、茹芬，我們想見你！」期盼能找回當年黑板上的兩名值日生，回母校重溫學生時期。當晚兩人都已經聯繫上，將安排時間重返母校。

校長蘇宗立說，因學校校舍目前正在重建，當年畢業校友相關資料非常龐大，且已完成打包，加上校舍月底就要拆除，從舊有資料去尋找緩不濟急，希望能在月底前找到兩位校友返校。

蘇宗立說，南寧高中創立於一九六○年，原為南寧國中，二○○三年成立高中部。目前校內有多棟超過五十年的舊校舍，因在二○一六大地震後受損，陸續拆除重建。日前進行舊校舍拆除作業時，發現舊黑板上竟還留存著一九八七年九月二十六日當天值日生的字跡，實屬不易，是屬於南寧的重要史料。

蘇宗立表示，舊校舍是屬於所有南寧人的回憶，三月初時更舉辦一系列舊校舍拆除紀念活動，成功喚回近五百名各世代的校友，一同重回母校，回憶當年的點點滴滴。盼望於當年擔任值日生的蔡雲萍和蔡茹芬兩位校友也能回到南寧，和充滿回憶的舊校舍告別，重溫學生時期的回憶。

尋人消息經媒體報導後，學校老師張家鼎在臉書分享本報的報導，經校友熱心協尋，兩位南寧校友於今晚分別透過市議員呂維胤的臉書和張家鼎老師的臉書連繫上。呂維胤說，兩人目前都在上班，一位在台南，另一位在高雄，本週會再和校方連繫，可能安排週六或週日重返母校。

（自由時報）


content_text:
National Basketball Association (NBA) commissioner Adam Silver finds himself almost constantly looking at financial numbers and projections and like the rest of the world, which is dealing with the seismic effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, he still is not sure how bad things will get.

Silver said on Saturday that the league is considering all options — best-case, worst-case and countless ideas in between — as it tries to come to grips with this new normal.

However, definitive answers on any front are in short supply.

NBA commissioner Adam Silver speaks at a news conference at the United Center in Chicago on Feb. 15.
 Photo: EPA-EFE

“It’s too soon to tell what the economic impact will be,” Silver said. “We’ve been analyzing multiple scenarios on a daily if not hourly basis and we’ll continue to review the financial implications.”

“Obviously, it’s not a pretty picture, but everyone, regardless of what industry they work in, is in the same boat,” he said.

Saturday marked the 10th full day of the NBA’s shutdown, a stoppage that has cost the league 75 games and counting so far, a total that will reach triple digits on Wednesday and will eventually get to 259 on April 15 — the day the regular season was supposed to end.

Play is not going to resume by then. The financial losses will be massive and will obviously just keep growing if this season cannot resume or if next season is affected.

“Adam is obviously cautious, cautiously optimistic,” Cleveland forward Kevin Love said earlier last week. “We don’t know what the future holds but the NBA has been through a lot, we’ve seen a lot and I think we’ll be incredibly resilient. It just might take time.”

Players who are due to get their next paycheck on Wednesday next week have been told that they will get them. Whether those players will get their April 15 check is in some question. The league can exercise a clause in the collective bargaining agreement that allows it to take back 1.08 percent of each player’s salary for each game missed in certain times — like war, or in this case, a pandemic.

That clause has not been exercised yet as, officially anyway, no game has been canceled.

“We’re exploring all options to resume our season if and when it is safe to do so,” Silver said. “Nothing is off the table.”

Besides, there are other bridges to cross first.

The NBA — which was the first major US pro league to say it would play games without fans and the first league to suspend its season once All-Star center Rudy Gobert of the Utah Jazz tested positive for the coronavirus — has been extremely vocal in trying to get its massive fan base to take social distancing and other preventative measures seriously.

“Our focus right now is doing all that we can to support, engage and educate the general public in response to this pandemic,” Silver said. “We are also making sure that we are prepared to resume the season if and when it becomes safe for all concerned.”

The league has asked teams for building availability dates through the end of August, an indicator that this season — if it resumes — might stretch deep into the summer.

So far, there are 14 people within the NBA community, including at least 10 players, known to have tested positive for COVID-19. Of those positive tests, seven became known publicly on Thursday.

“Unfortunately, based on everything we know, significantly more positive cases in our league were inevitable,” Silver said. “So, Thursday’s results did not come as a huge surprise and just like everyone else, we’re just trying to take each day as it comes.”

The virus originated in China, where the NBA has offices and about 200 employees.

What workers in China went through helped the league quickly grasp some sort of understanding of its severity.

Silver made the decision to shut down the league before any public health experts advised the NBA to take that step.

“We’ve learned a lot from our China office,” Silver said, adding that meetings have been of the virtual variety there for several weeks now.

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title: NBA’s Adam Silver seeks answers, none available


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title: EDITORIAL CARTOON


title: Olympics preparing for delay: sources

content_text:
DISSENT:
 The US track and field body joined sports officials in Norway and Brazil, as well as Indian athletes, in calling on the IOC to postpone the Tokyo Olympic Games

Tokyo 2020 organizers have started drafting possible alternatives to holding the Olympics this summer, two sources familiar with the talks said, in contrast to the Japanese government’s stance that postponement is not an option.

While the COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted sports events around the world, Japan has been steadfast in saying that the Games would go on.

A Japanese government spokesman on Wednesday said that Tokyo was not preparing for postponement.

People watch as a steam locomotive carrying the Tokyo Olympic Games’ flame arrives at the Tono Railway Station in Iwate Prefecture, Japan, yesterday.
 Photo: AFP

“Finally, we have been asked to make a simulation in case of a postponement,” said one of the sources, an official close to the organizing committee who is involved in drafting the scenarios.

Both sources spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.

“We are making alternative plans — plan B, C, D — looking at different postponement timeframes,” the first official said, adding that the scenarios included cost estimates for delays.

Neither Tokyo 2020 organizers nor the International Olympic Committee (IOC) immediately responded to a request for comment.

The government of Japan could not be reached for comment.

The options, which include scaling back the Games or holding them without spectators, would be debated by the organizing committee this month, the official said.

The second source, who is also close to the Tokyo 2020 organizing committee, confirmed that postponement was being discussed, including delays of one or two years.

Some organizing staff were holding out hope for a delay of a month or 45 days, said the second official, who is involved in drafting the scenarios.

Meanwhile, athletes and sports bodies around the world are calling for a postponement.

In the US, sports officials are facing a growing rebellion inside their ranks about the Games.

USA Track and Field chief executive officer Max Siegel joined USA Swimming in calling on the US Olympic and Paralympic Committee (USOPC) to advocate a delay.

Track and field, and swimming accounted for 65 of the US’ 121 medals and 175 of the nation’s 554 athletes at the previous Summer Games and Siegel said his organization urged “the USOPC, as a leader within the Olympic movement, to use its voice and speak up for the athletes.”

USOPC board member and Olympic champion bobsledder Steve Mesler wrote in a blog post on Friday that the IOC “has not shown the leadership we Olympians desire out of those who are in charge.

Mesler said that these were his thoughts “as an Olympian and not those of the USOPC, its board of directors or its leaders.”

Other national committees are also calling on the IOC to act.

The federations in Norway and Brazil went public with requests to postpone the Games.

“Our clear recommendation is that the Olympic Games in Tokyo shall not take place before the COVID-19 situation is under firm control on a global scale,” Norway’s federation wrote in a letter to IOC president Thomas Bach.

Additional reporting by AP

Some Indian athletes have joined the calls, saying they have no access to training facilities because of lockdowns.

“As an athlete, I obviously want the Olympics to happen, but it should not happen,” local media quoted Indian table tennis player Sharath Kamal as telling the Press Trust of India. “The epicenter of the virus will keep changing, first it was China, now it is Italy, and Iran, too, is badly affected in Asia.”

“I don’t see the scenario being safe for the Olympics to start on time,” Kamal said.

“Everyone is talking about social distancing, but it is one thing which won’t be possible at the Olympics,” he said. “Thousands of athletes would be staying in the same village.”

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title: Nien Made warns closed border to affect shipments

content_text:
Window curtain supplier Nien Made Enterprise Co (億豐工業) on Saturday said that the closure of the border between Vietnam and Cambodia would affect shipments of its products made in Cambodia.

The company — whose product portfolio includes window coverings such as venetian blinds, shutters and shades — said nonetheless that it had prepared contingency plans to mitigate the effects of the closure.

Nien Made has four production bases in China’s Dongguan and Shandong, as well as a plant in Cambodia.

The company ships products from the Cambodian plant through the Port of Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam, it said.

Vietnam and Cambodia on Thursday last week announced a temporary closure of the border to stem the spread of COVID-19 in the region.

The restrictions would affect shipments of its Cambodian ready-made window coverings, Nien Made said.

“Nien Made has informed its big-box clients about these policies and will make good use of its Cambodian warehouse facilities,” the company said.

“On top of that, Nien Made’s shipments might reroute to Cambodia’s Sihanoukville Port, a more distant facility, to ease latent impacts,” it said.

The company’s big-box clients include Home Depot Inc and Walmart Inc, with other major clients including dealers, designers and small specialty stores, it said.

Nien Made said its California subsidiary had asked its staff to split into shifts or work from home.

The company reported net income for last year grew 24.1 percent year-on-year to NT$4.5 billion (US$148.51 million), with earnings per share rising to a record NT$15.37, up from NT$12.39 in 2018.

Consolidated revenue increased 9.4 percent to NT$23.9 billion last year, thanks to market share gains, better custom-made window covering prices and improved production efficiency, the company said.

Nien Made’s board has proposed distributing a cash dividend of NT$10 per share, the same as the payouts in the previous three years, as it took into consideration capacity expansion plans in Myanmar, Cambodia and Mexico this year, it said in a statement.

In the first two months of this year, Nien Made’s consolidated revenue declined 8.19 percent annually to NT$3.08 billion due to delayed factory production in China last month amid the COVID-19 outbreak.

Factory resumption rates were up to 80 percent this month, the company said, adding that it faces no material shortages and logistics problems in China thanks to its high degree of vertical integration.

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title: Netflix to restrict its Internet traffic across Europe

content_text:
Netflix Inc said it would cut traffic by 25 percent on networks across Europe in a relief measure for Internet service providers (ISPs) experiencing a surge in usage due to government “shelter in place” amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

The streaming giant, which has already deployed a way to reduce its traffic on networks in Italy and Spain by one-quarter, on Saturday said it would do the same for the rest of Europe.

Netflix said it would remove the highest bandwidth streams within each resolution category for the next 30 days in Europe, wherein users might notice a slight decrease in video quality within each category.

“Our goal is simple: to maintain the quality of service for our members, while supporting ISPs who are facing unprecedented strain on their networks,” the company said.

Netflix said that it would continue to adhere with normal procedures for all other networks “until and unless they experience issues of their own.”

Netflix had more than 42 million subscribers in Europe, Africa and the Middle East at the end of the first quarter of last year, an exchange filing showed, with the bulk estimated to be in Europe.

Alphabet Inc’s YouTube and Amazon.com Inc joined Netflix in responding to a call by EU Minister of the Economy, Finance and Industry Thierry Breton to cut picture quality to prevent overload.

Walt Disney Co’s streaming service Disney+, which is set to launch in Britain and most major European markets tomorrow, has delayed its launch in France by two weeks at the request of the French government.

Anticipating higher consumer demand, the company is instituting measures to “lower our overall bandwidth utilization by at least 25 percent in all of the markets launching Disney+ on March 24th,” said Kevin Mayer, head of Disney’s direct-to-consumer and international business.

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content_text:
On March 6, China announced through Hong Kong’s Chinese-language Ming Pao that Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) would visit Wuhan “soon.”

On the same day, US-based Chinese-language IPK Media published an article by Chinese tycoon Ren Zhiqiang (任志強), with the headline: “An official call to arms against Xi: The clown who insists on wearing the emperor’s new clothes.”

Will the truth about the struggles inside the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in the wake of the COVID-19 outbreak finally be revealed?

Ren’s article is reminiscent of Tang Dynasty poet Luo Binwang’s (駱賓王) “An official call to arms against Empress Wu Zetian (武則天) on behalf of General Xu Jingye (徐敬業)” (為徐敬業討武曌檄). Luo wrote it for Xu, but who did Ren write his piece for?

In Luo’s declaration, the last sentence is particularly famous: “Just look around the realm. Who is in control?”

In today’s China, is Xi still in control?

Ren is a “second-generation red” — a child of the first generation of CCP leaders. In his 2013 memoir, Ren revealed that Chinese Vice President Wang Qishan (王岐山) was his high-school classmate in Beijing, and that they settled in Yanan together after graduating.

When they returned to Beijing, Ren became a real-estate tycoon and Wang entered politics. At the time the book was published, Wang was a member of the CCP Politburo Standing Committee and secretary of the party’s Central Commission for Discipline Inspection.

Wang has taken a back seat as vice president since 2018. At the beginning, he was allowed to attend the seven-member Politburo Standing Committee meetings and was dubbed its eighth member.

However, Xi and Wang have grown apart since Xi removed presidential term limits and during the China-US trade dispute.

When receiving the Mexican foreign minister, an old friend, on July 1 last year, Wang said that he was merely helping Xi perform a few ceremonial diplomatic duties.

This is clear as he has been sidelined by Xi during the US-China trade dispute, despite his connections with Washington and expertise in financial and economic affairs.

Even if Wang was unaware of Ren’s article, it must have spoken the minds of many people in Chinese political and economic circles.

People such as late Chinese doctor Li Wenliang (李文亮), the whistleblower who warned about the COVID-19 outbreak, were questioned, silenced or disappeared for leaking information about or commenting on the disease, but since Ren is a “second-generation red” and thus part of the establishment, dealing with him poses a tricky problem for Xi.

Members of the “business clan,” such as Wang and former Chinese premier Zhu Rongji (朱鎔基), have long been unhappy with Xi’s handling of the trade dispute, which has been disastrous to China and its people, and they are furious with the cover-up of the epidemic, which seriously harmed the Chinese economy.

In addition to the “business clan,” the Communist Youth League is also powerful.

The “Xi clan” is a small group of people who were his subordinates during his terms as head of China’s Fujian and Zhejiang provinces. Having been elevated to the top while lacking experience and training, they often make fools of themselves, causing public anger.

Given these circumstances, perhaps Ren’s call to arms against Xi could become a reality if the forces opposed to Xi could work together.

Paul Lin is a political commentator.

Translated by Eddy Chang

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title: Xi’s enemies grow bolder as missteps continue


content_text:
APPARENT DEAL:
 Supporters cheered Roland Marchal’s release, but said that his partner, Fariba Adelkhah, a dual national, is still being held on conspiracy charges

French researcher Roland Marchal on Saturday returned to Paris after being imprisoned in Iran for more than nine months, after France released an Iranian threatened with extradition to the US.

“Roland has returned,” his support group announced in a short message.

He was taken to a military hospital near Paris for medical tests, a relative told reporters, adding that the “analyses were good.”

French President Emmanuel Macron on Thursday takes part in a videoconference with economic leaders and members of the governement in Paris.
 Photo: Reuters

Earlier, French President Emmanuel Macron announced that Tehran freed Marchal after France released Iranian engineer Jallal Rohollahnejad, who is accused in the US of violating sanctions placed on the country.

Macron “is happy to announce the release of Roland Marchal, imprisoned in Iran since June 2019,” but he “urges the Iranian authorities to immediately free” fellow researcher Fariba Adelkhah, his office said.

France has for months demanded that Iran release Adelkhah and her partner, Marchal, who were detained last year accused of plotting against national security. Their trial began early this month.

Adelkhah is a citizen of both Iran and France, but Tehran does not recognize dual nationality.

Said Dehqan, lawyer for both detainees, told reporters that Adelkhah was “very happy” about the liberation of her companion.

Iran has in the past few months carried out prisoner exchanges with the US, Australia and Germany.

The Iranian judiciary’s news agency Mizan Online reported that Rohollahnejad had been freed by France on Friday.

Iranian state TV showed images of him hugging members of his family during an emotional reunion in Tehran.

He stood accused in the US of trying to smuggle technological material into Iran in violation of US sanctions.

“Thanks be to god, those days have ended,” Rohollahnejad said in an interview on state TV.

The visibly emotional Rohollahnejad added that he had been badly treated while in detention in France.

The French Court of Cassation had on March 11 approved “the request to extradite Rohollahnejad to the US, but the French government freed him, changing this decision,” it said.

Adelkhah, 60, an anthropologist and expert on Shiite Islam, faces charges of “propaganda against the system” and “colluding to commit acts against national security,” Dehqan said.

Marchal, 64, a specialist on East Africa, was accused of the same national security charge, the lawyer said.

Their Paris-based support group and the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs had sounded the alarm over the health of both detainees — Adelkhah went on hunger strike for 49 days and Marchal’s health is said to be deteriorating.

The support group has repeatedly said that the two are innocent of the charges.

“We welcome with relief the arrival of Roland Marchal in Paris after nearly nine months of arbitrary detention in very difficult conditions, but only half of the path has been taken,” said Jean-Francois Bayart, a member of the committee and a professor at the Geneva, Switzerland-based Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies.

He said “the fight continues” to secure Adelkhah’s release.

Ahead of Iran’s celebration of the Persian New Year starting on Friday, authorities had released a number of international prisoners.

US Navy veteran Michael White on Thursday was handed over in Mashhad to a team from Switzerland, which represents US interests in the absence of diplomatic relations, and flown to Tehran, the US Department of State said.

Iran last week also freed for two weeks Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a British-Iranian dual national who worked for the Thomson Reuters Foundation, but she has been confined to her parents’ home in west Tehran, wearing an ankle tag.

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title: Iran frees French researcher in swap


content_text:
Virus Outbreak: Digestive health key to enhancing immune system

Improving digestive health is essential to enhancing the immune system and lowering risks from bacteria, viruses and toxins, a nutritionist at the Ministry of Health and Welfare’s Taoyuan General Hospital said.

In addition to wearing a mask and washing hands frequently, enhancing gut health is also key to fending off diseases, as the gastrointestinal tract is where food enters the body and is home to 70 to 80 percent of the body’s immune cells, nutritionist Chang Hsiu-nien (張秀年) said.

Good dietary habits contribute to good gut health, and people should eat more high-fiber food, proteins and antioxidants, she said.

Some dietary fiber can be fermented by specific microbes in the large intestine with the production of short-chain fatty acids, which stimulate intestinal barrier development and inhibit the growth of “bad” bacteria, both of which strengthen the immune system, she said.

People should eat at least three servings of vegetables and two servings of fruit per day to ensure sufficient fiber intake, she added.

Avoid deep-fried food and eating late at night, and try to maintain a regular meal and sleep schedule, she said.

People should eat good sources of protein — such as meat, eggs, dairy and soybeans — and only eat a portion of meat about the size of the palm of the hand, she said, adding that moderate amounts of seafood rich in zinc, such as clams and oysters, are beneficial, too.

Antioxidants in natural foods — such as vitamin C and E, anthocyanin, lycopene, allicin, lutein and quercetin — can help with intestinal repair, and phytochemicals can help reduce inflammation, prevent excessive amounts of free radicals and speed up cell metabolism, she said.

Beneficial phytochemicals are commonly found in grains, beans, vegetables and fruits, and the more colorful the food is, the higher its phytochemical content and the better restorative power it has for intestinal cells, she added.

As part of preventive medicine, people should eat no fewer than 30 foods per day, as a large variety of food is important for a healthy gut, she said.

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title: Taiwan Business Quick Take

content_text:
ELECTRONICS

HTC posts 2019 loss

HTC Corp (宏達電) on Friday posted net losses of NT$9.36 billion (US$308.89 million), or net losses per share of NT$11.43, for last year due to stiff competition in the global market and the inability of its virtual reality business to make up for slumping smartphone sales. While HTC posted net losses of NT$2.37 billion in the fourth quarter last year, its 17th loss-making quarter in the past 18 quarters, gross margin for the quarter rose 2.8 percentage points from a quarter earlier to 25.7 percent.

ELECTRONICS

Apple limits purchases

Apple Inc on Friday announced that it is limiting online purchases of select iPhone models in Taiwan and in other markets amid disruptions to its supply chain. On its Web site in Taiwan, Apple said that people would be limited to online purchases of no more than two of any of its latest iPhone models — the iPhone 11, the iPhone 11 Pro and the iPhone 11 Pro MAX. People can also buy no more than two of any of its earlier iPhone models — the iPhone XR, the iPhone 8 and the iPhone 8 Plus — per online purchase. The purchase limit for the new iPad Pro, which was unveiled on Wednesday, has also been set at two, while no more than five of the latest MacBook Air and the Mac mini can be bought at a time.

EXPORTS

Data show homeward trend

Export order data indicated a continued shift in production by Taiwanese businesses home from China because of measures to contain the COVID-19 outbreak, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said on Friday. Only 40.7 percent of the orders placed with Taiwanese firms last month were shipped from China, a decline of 8.1 percentage points from January, the data showed.

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content_text:
Nations with a higher math literacy and better tracking technology seem to have curtailed the outbreaks in their countries

Not to diminish the superhuman efforts of nurses, doctors and healthcare workers worldwide, but sometimes, no matter how hard one tries, and no matter how selflessly one sacrifices, one stands no chance against a more powerful enemy.

The new coronavirus, COVID-19, has proved to be such a foe. Were it not for technology, the battle against it would have been lost by now.

Math and technology, to be more precise. I say math, because understanding a concept as basic as “exponential growth” proved crucial for attacking the enemy head-on.

The successful containment of the epidemic in China, South Korea and Japan has been attributed to strong governments, and cultures that put society’s good ahead of private convenience.

I would add that these countries also stand out for their students’ high math literacy. In last year’s PISA rankings, produced by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, China ranked first in math with a score of 591 out of 600, Japan ranked sixth and South Korea was seventh.

By contrast, Italy was in 31st place, Spain placed 34th and the US ranked 37th.

PISA scores might have their shortcomings, but they do provide a rough idea of the math literacy of the average citizen in the countries that take part. That the countries with the highest rankings seem to have adopted the most effective containment strategies serves as a reminder that, ultimately, the reason we want better training in math and logic is not to land more lucrative jobs, but to make better decisions regarding our lives.

Technology has been the true champion in the fight against the spread of COVID-19. Here, I do not mean the intensive care units and respirators, without which severely ill patients would not stand a chance. I mean the new data-driven technologies that enabled responsible governments to track the infected, contact them and quarantine them early.

These technologies have been the target of much criticism in the past few years. Now, when they are helping us save lives, they deserve our praise.

South Korea’s achievement is truly impressive. As of Tuesday last week, the country has had 8,320 cases and 81 deaths, despite an early bad start. Contrast this with Italy, which at the same time reported 27,980 cases and 2,158 deaths.

Technology’s contribution to pandemic management goes beyond tracking and quarantines. As the US and countries in Europe move toward near-complete lockdown, with potentially disastrous consequences for the world economy, technology offers a glimmer of hope.

Many firms, especially in tech, have closed their offices, mandated that employees telecommute, and provided them with computing and video technology to work remotely.

Not only does this keep an important part of the economy going, but it also has had unintended positive consequences. Vehicle congestion, for example, has vanished. The hours harried commuters previously lost in traffic can now be dedicated to work and family. Corporate travel is disappearing, and video conferences are the new norm, with associated reductions in airplane pollution and huge savings in time.

Likewise, educators at nearly every level are scrambling to find online alternatives to in-classroom instruction. Whereas in earlier times, school closings would have implied loss of instruction time, technology is allowing students to continue learning. The current crisis would advance that process, as a relatively modest group of early adopters in producing online courses is joined by whole universities that have been forced to move to the Web.

Obviously, there are challenges to adapting a curriculum intended to be taught in person to the online setting.

However, with entire faculties experimenting, we are certain to see innovation and rapid improvement in the effectiveness of distance learning.

Once students finally return to the classroom, we should continue to leverage these innovations, not only in the developed world, where necessity has forced our hand, but also in developing countries hungry for cost-effective education.

In the retail sector, digital platforms can fill the gap when supermarket shelves empty or self-quarantine makes in-person shopping impossible. Film and music streaming, video chats and social media have offered avenues to reduce isolation, stay connected, and preserve mental health while locked down.

In these and other ways, the pandemic is accelerating existing technological trends and revealing important benefits, which we should embrace, both now and after the crisis abates.

However, when normalcy returns, we are also likely to confront once again some tough questions about technological innovation.

The COVID-19 crisis has revived the tension between privacy and effective targeting. In the past few years, we often encountered this debate with respect to major tech platforms using granular information about users to deliver micro-targeted news and advertising.

However, the same kinds of technology have been used to identify those infected by or most vulnerable to the coronavirus.

Of course, the tension between privacy and health outcomes is not new: The desire to protect individual histories prevents medical researchers and clinicians from mining the full set of health data to achieve better outcomes. COVID-19 reminds us that we might want to think carefully about the relative benefits of data sharing, as they might sometimes dominate the value of preserving privacy.

Absent intervention, technological trends would inevitably generate winners and losers. Brick-and-mortar stores that were already losing market share to digital platforms are likely to be decimated wherever self-quarantine and mandatory lockdowns are in effect.

Although increased telecommuting, reduced business travel and distance learning would increase productivity for some, they are significantly disrupting the livelihoods of others, and that disruption would accelerate in the next few months.

So, more than ever, it would be imperative to provide support and adjustment assistance to individuals, firms, or entire communities hit by the crisis.

However, we should resist the urge to resume our relentless, if fashionable, tech bashing. If there is a silver lining in the current crisis, it is the realization that knowledge — primarily math, science and technology in this case — is our best weapon.

Pinelopi Koujianou Goldberg, a former World Bank Group chief economist and editor-in-chief of the American Economic Review, is a professor of economics at Yale University.

Copyright: Project Syndicate

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title: A silent hero of  the coronavirus crisis


title: Review urged for addiction treatment

content_text:
‘PATIENT PRISONERS’:
 The number of drug offenders who accept to undergo addiction treatment in exchange for deferred prosecution has surged, straining medical facilities

Government guidelines that allow drug offenders to undergo addiction treatment for deferred prosecution need to be reviewed, the Control Yuan said, citing a surge in the number of people undergoing treatment.

It asked the Ministry of Justice and the Ministry of Health and Welfare to review the Executive Yuan’s New Generation Anti-Drug Strategy Action Guidelines.

According to the guidelines, the Ministry of Justice is to treat drug offenders as “patient prisoners,” and increase every year the percentage of Class 1 and Class 2 drug users who are allowed to undergo drug addiction treatment for deferred prosecution — from 11 percent in 2016 to 15 percent in 2017 and 20 percent this year — Control Yuan members Lin Ya-feng (林雅鋒), Liu Te-hsun (劉德勳) and Yang Fang-wan (楊芳婉) said.

Compared with sentencing, observed rehabilitation and compulsory rehabilitation, drug addiction treatment can allow the defendants to recover and receive treatment in the community, Lin said.

If a defendant fails to complete treatment, deferred prosecution would be revoked, she said.

However, the number of people treated for drug addiction has surged, leading to capacity shortages at medical institutions, she said.

Furthermore, the Protection of Children and Youth Welfare and Rights Act (兒童及少年福利與權益保障法) does not designate children whose parents are undergoing drug addiction treatment as people who should be visited by social workers, Lin said.

Government agencies should discuss having prosecutors send social workers to check up on such children, she added.

A mechanism for reporting child abuse and referring such cases to local social affairs authorities should also be set up to allow early intervention and provide a better social support system, Lin said.

Medical institutions should evaluate whether a defendant has a medical need for drug addiction treatment, she said.

Current assessment tools and inspection mechanisms are inadequate, she added.

There are also no assessment tools based on scientific evidence to determine whether a defendant should be subject to drug addiction treatment, observed rehabilitation or compulsory rehabilitation, Lin said.

When handling cases of drug use, juvenile courts should consult a medical institution or other relevant institution before reaching a decision on the best way to handle the case, to help children overcome their addiction and return to a drug-free life, she said.

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content_text:
Formosa Plastics Group’s (FPG, 台塑集團) four major subsidiaries saw their capitalization shrink by double-digit percentage points last week as worries over the spread of COVID-19 led to a massive sell-off in local equities, a Taiwan Stock Exchange (TWSE) tally showed.

The combined market capitalization of Formosa Plastics Corp (台灣塑膠), Nan Ya Plastics Corp (南亞塑膠), Formosa Petrochemical Corp (台塑石化) and Formosa Chemicals & Fibre Corp (台灣化學纖維) totaled NT$1.897 trillion (US$62.6 billion) on Friday, down 10.43 percent from NT$2.118 trillion a week earlier.

Last week, the TAIEX fell 894.78 points, or 8.83 percent, with market capitalization of all TWSE-listed stocks totaling NT$28.09 trillion at the end of the week, down 8.12 percent from NT$30.8 trillion the previous week.

While the companies that form the nation’s largest industrial group have maintained dividend payout ratios of as high as 75 percent this year to reward shareholders, they might still face weak market sentiment for their equities.

That is because, apart from COVID-19 concerns, prices for polyethylene, ethylene glycol and polyvinyl chloride products made at naphtha-based and ethane-based facilities have been declining this year amid sluggish demand, analysts said.

“We believe that global demand for petrochemical products has now reached its lowest point. Although individual companies have lowered their cracker utilization rates by 10 to 20 percentage points ... these efforts should barely be sufficient to offset the decrease in demand,” NH Investment & Securities Co Seoul-based analysts Yusik Hwang and Han Kim said in a note on Friday.

Nan Ya, which manufactures plastic and fiber products, as well as electronic materials and petrochemical products, on Thursday said that its board of directors had approved a proposal to distribute a cash dividend of NT$2.2 per common share — the lowest in six years — with a payout ratio of 75.6 percent based on last year’s earnings per share of NT$2.91.

Nan Ya is the last of the four units to report a low dividend due to last year’s weak performance.

Formosa Plastics’ board on Tuesday approved a cash dividend of NT$4.4 per share, the lowest since 2016, but the highest among the four firms.

Based on last year’s earnings per share of NT$5.86, the flagship company of the industrial conglomerate and the nation’s largest maker of polyvinyl chloride resins would offer a payout ratio of 75.09 percent for its dividend distribution.

Formosa Petrochemical’s board on March 9 approved a cash dividend of NT$2.9 per share, the lowest in five years. With last year’s earnings per share of NT$3.86, the refiner’s payout ratio is 75.13 percent.

The board of Formosa Chemicals, one of the main aromatics and styrenics suppliers in Asia, on March 13 approved a cash dividend of NT$3.8 per share, suggesting a payout ratio of 73.93 percent compared with last year’s earnings per share of NT$5.14.

Overall, total cash dividend distribution would be NT$95.35 billion for the four FPG subsidiaries this year, a decrease of 39.88 percent from the NT$158.6 billion they distributed last year.

Analysts said that petrochemical stocks are expected to face strong headwinds in the next few months, including sluggish demand and falling oil prices, which might prompt companies to revise downward their earnings outlooks for this year.

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title: FPG units report a drop in capitalization


content_text:
SWITCH TODAY:
 Continuous trading might be hard to deal with given how volatile the market is, and it would be a headache if something goes wrong, a trader said

Taiwan’s timing on rolling out a new stock trading system could have been better.

Starting today, traders in Taipei are to be able to trade stocks continuously, rather than through a five-second matched call auction that has been in place since 2014.

It is the only major capital market that runs such auctions throughout regular trading, the Taiwan Stock Exchange said.

The move, which culminates a decade-long process, has been widely encouraged.

The exchange has said that continuous trading should make for more efficient activity and provide market participants with pre-trade information in addition to post-trade details.

However, some traders worry that any snags from the change could add to recent volatility.

This month’s sell-off wiped out US$340 billion of market value in two weeks.

“It’s concerning to deal with a new trading system given how volatile the market is now,” said Kidd Tu, a manager at E.Sun Securities Co (玉山證券). “It will be a headache if the system is unstable or something goes wrong.”

The exchange is confident that it can handle the switch.

“We tested the system many times to make sure everything is ready,” Taiwan Stock Exchange senior executive vice president Rebecca Chen (陳麗卿) said.

Like markets across the world, Taiwan’s stocks are reeling from the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. The benchmark TAIEX joined the list of bear markets this month and dropped to its lowest level since the middle of 2016.

The TAIEX surged 6.4 percent on Friday last week, the most since stock-price limits were loosened in 2015, as the National Stabilization Fund pledging to back the stock market with as much as NT$500 billion (US$16.5 billion). Meanwhile, the Financial Supervisory Commission tightened rules on short selling.

Foreigners have long been an important part of Taiwan’s stock market and they recently owned about 40 percent of equities here.

However, overseas investors have sold a net US$16.3 billion of stocks to start this year, which tops any end-of-year figure since at least 2000, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Derivatives trading in warrants and options is already done continuously, so the thinking goes that strategies for stocks and derivatives can now be more integrated.

The Taiwan Stock Exchange is also expanding order types today to include market orders, immediate or cancel orders, and fill or kill orders. Previously, there had been just limit orders.

“Ideally you want to run live when the situation is perfect, but on the other hand, the regulators are confident the system is bulletproof and their liquidity measuring tools are showing a green light.” Axicorp Ltd chief market strategist Stephen Innes said.

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title: Trading system arrives amid volatility


content_text:
CUMULATIVE EFFECT:
 By cutting their deposit rates, Land Bank of Taiwan and Bank of Taiwan would cost clients with NT$1 million NT$2,523 in annual income

The benchmark one-year time deposit rate offered by local banks has dropped below 1 percent after the central bank last week cut its key interest rates amid mounting concerns over the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the economy.

State-owned Bank of Taiwan (臺灣銀行) has cut its deposit rates by 0.05 to 0.3 percentage points and lowered its one-year time deposit rate from 1.09 percent to 0.84 percent, the lowest in the nation’s history. The new rates are to take effect today.

Land Bank of Taiwan (土地銀行) has also announced that it would reduce deposit rates by 0.25 to 0.295 percentage points, pushing down its one-year time deposit rate to 0.84 percent, also effective from today.

The moves by the nation’s major banks would cost their clients with NT$1 million (US$33,001) in one-year time deposit accounts NT$2,523 in interest income, as they would see their annual interest income fall from NT$10,955 at a rate of 1.09 percent.

The central bank on Thursday cut its key interest rate by 0.25 percentage points, bringing its discount rate to 1.125 percent, the lowest level in Taiwan’s history.

The rate on accommodations with collateral has also dropped to 1.5 percent, and the rate on accommodations without collateral has declined to 3.375 percent, the central bank said.

Interest income in the banking industry is expected to fall by NT$13.7 billion annually, accounting for 3.8 percent of its annual profit, said Lin Shih-chieh (林士傑), head of the Taiwan Academy of Banking and Finance’s Financial Research Institute.

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title: One-year time deposit rate falls below 1 percent


people: 侯友宜 林生

content_text:
Virus Outbreak: Limit crowds during Tomb Sweeping day, mayor says

All state-run columbariums must strictly regulate how many visitors they host during Tomb Sweeping Day on Saturday next week to curb the spread of COVID-19, New Taipei City Mayor Hou You-yi (侯友宜) said yesterday.

Hou asked people to use online worshipping services instead.

Electronic “tomb sweeping” systems, which display a virtual altar for people to make offerings and say prayers, can reduce crowd sizes at columbariums, Hou said during a site visit to Shulin Life Memorial Hall (樹林生命紀念館), a columbarium in the city’s Shulin Disrict (樹林).

People wearing masks clean their ancestors’ tombs yesterday ahead of the Qingming Festival, also known as Tomb Sweeping Day, which is to be held on April 4 this year to avoid the usual traffic jams and crowds.
 Photo: CNA

Measures for admission control would be strictly implemented in state-run columbariums, Hou said, pointing to the Shulin columbarium, which would allow only 50 visitors indoors at a time to ensure people can have 1m between them.

The outbreak is likely to peak in the next two or three weeks, and while situations outside Taiwan are beyond its control, the nation can minimize the domestic spread of the virus, he said.

With 70 percent of quarantine beds already occupied, cluster infections would put a heavier burden on, or even collapse, Taiwan’s healthcare system, Hou said, highlighting that prevention is crucial.

Asked about his views on experts’ advice that campuses should close for two to three weeks if there are cluster infections in the city, Hou said that schools, hospitals and other public gathering spaces should all shut down if cluster infections occur, adding that allowing people to work from home is part of his response plan.

If schools are suspended, measures regarding online education are already in place, he added.

“We do not want it to happen, but we have to plan for the worst and make the most sufficient preparations,” he said.

To prevent people who have just returned to Taiwan from breaking mandatory home quarantine, the city government would cooperate with a special care committee — made up of representatives from local police offices, the Department of Health and district offices — to carry out random site checks in closed paces such as KTVs, he said.

The New Taipei City Government announced on Thursday last week that all public sports centers, activity centers and museums in the city would close for 14 days.

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content_text:
Virus Outbreak: World ramps up restrictions as virus cases top 300,000

From Italy and India to the US, governments rolled out tougher measures to halt the rapid spread of the COVID-19 pandemic as global cases surged past 300,000 yesterday and Asia braced for a possible second wave of infections.

Nearly 1 billion people are already confined to their homes around the world as countries race to contain the ballooning outbreak by imposing unprecedented lockdown measures, shutting shops and businesses, and sealing borders.

Italy has reported more deaths — more than 4,800 — than mainland China and third-placed Iran combined, and has a death rate of 8.6 percent among confirmed COVID-19 cases, more than one-third of the global total.

A handout photograph from the Madrid regional government shows a temporary hospital set up at a pavilion in the Ifema convention and exhibition center in the Spanish capital on Saturday.
 Photo: AFP / Comunidad de Madrid

Police yesterday patrolled the deserted streets of Rome, while checks were also carried out on beaches after local officials complained people were defying orders to catch some time in the sun.

Similar shut-in measures have been rolled out in badly hit Spain and France, where helicopters and drones are being deployed to ensure crowds do not gather in parks or along river banks.

Spain saw a sharp spike in deaths again yesterday — a 30 percent rise bringing total fatalities to 1,720 — while France saw its death toll mount to 562 on Saturday.

A Russian Orthodox priest sprinkles holy water on ambulances during a religious procession at the First City Hospital in Moscow yesterday after the hospital administration asked the church to bless its territory and buildings in support of COVID-19 prevention efforts.
 Photo: EPA-EFE

More than one-third of Americans were meanwhile adjusting to life in various phases of lockdown, including in New York, Chicago and Los Angeles. Other parts of the US are expected to ramp up restrictions as well.

New Jersey on Saturday followed several states in telling residents to stay indoors.

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said that the disruption is likely to last for months, not weeks.

The US Food and Drug Administration also approved the first coronavirus test that can be conducted entirely at the point of care for a patient — and deliver results in 45 minutes.

The pandemic has bludgeoned global stock markets, and the US — the world’s biggest economy — is preparing a huge emergency stimulus package that could top US$1 trillion.

Several European countries have already announced their own stimulus packages to stave off economic collapse.

The coronavirus has infected more than 1,100 across Africa too, where healthcare systems are limited and social distancing measures are difficult in crowded cities.

The Middle East also remains on high alert, but Iran, which reported 129 deaths yesterday, has refused to join the rest of the world in imposing heavy restrictions.

El Salvador joined several central and South American countries in imposing quarantine measures on Saturday, as Colombia announced its first COVID-19 death.


content_text:
Crowdsourced virtual supercomputer hunting for coronavirus’ weak spot

Gamers, bitcoin “miners” and companies large and small have teamed up for an unprecedented data-crunching effort that aims to harness idle computing power to accelerate research for a coronavirus treatment.

The project led by computational biologists has effectively created the world’s most powerful supercomputer that can handle trillions of calculations needed to understand the structure of the virus.

More than 400,000 users have downloaded the application in the past two weeks from Folding@Home, said director Greg Bowman, a professor of biochemistry and molecular biophysics at Washington University in St Louis, Missouri, where the project is based.

The “distributed computing” effort ties together thousands of devices to create a virtual supercomputer.

The project originally launched at Stanford University 20 years ago was designed to use crowdsourced computing power for simulations to better understand diseases, especially “protein folding” anomalies that can make pathogens deadly.

“The simulations allow us to watch how every atom moves throughout time,” Bowman said.

The massive analysis looks for “pockets” or holes in the virus where a drug can be squeezed in.

“Our primary objective is to hunt for binding sites for therapeutics,” Bowman said.

The powerful computing effort can test potential drug therapies, a technique known as computational drug design.

Bowman said he is optimistic about this effort because the team previously found a “druggable” target in the Ebola virus and because COVID-19 is structurally similar to the SARS virus.

“The best opportunity for the near-term future is if we can find an existing drug that can bind to one of these sites,” he said. “If that happens it could be used right away.”

This is likely to include drugs like the antimalarials chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine, which might be “repurposed” for COVID-19.

The project has been able to boost its power to about 400 petaflops, with each petaflop having the capacity to carry out one quadrillion calculations per second, which is three times more powerful than the world’s top supercomputers, Bowman said.

The Folding@Home project is fueled by crowdsourced computing power from people’s desktops, laptops and even PlayStation consoles, as well as more powerful business computers and servers.

“There is no end to the compute power than we can use in principle,” Bowman said.

Firms including Microsoft Corp-owned GitHub are participating, but anyone with a relatively recent computer can contribute by installing a program that downloads a small amount of data for analysis. People can choose which disease they wish to work on.

“It’s like bitcoin mining, but in the service of humanity,” said Quentin Rhoads-Herrera of the security firm Critical Start, which has provided its powerful password “hash cracker” computer designed to decrypt passwords to the project.

Nvidia Corp, which makes powerful graphics processors for gaming devices, called on gamers to join the effort as well.

“The response has been record-breaking, with tens of thousands of new users” joining, Nvidia spokesman Hector Marinez said.

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content_text:
By Hsieh Chun-lin
and Dennis Xie / Staff reporter, with staff writer

The Judicial Yuan president should more strictly supervise Hsinchu District Court Chief Judge Chou Yan-ping (周煙平) for forcing a female office assistant to drink three glasses of beer as punishment for being late for a luncheon, the Control Yuan said in a news release on Saturday.

The incident happened at one of the court’s year-end luncheons last year, when the assistant arrived at the venue late due to a medical appointment, the Control Yuan said.

A senior colleague filled a glass of beer following Chou’s request, even though the assistant said she had not eaten anything and hoped to sing to entertain people as an alternative, it said.

However, the assistant eventually drank three glasses of beer under pressure, it said.

Chou’s action was inappropriate, as he did not consider the different position of power between himself and the assistant or show respect for the assistant’s wishes, the Control Yuan said.

Chou is also responsible for failing in his supervisory role regarding a case involving Hsinchu District Court judge Wu Chen-fu (吳振富), who was suspended on Jan. 23 and impeached on March 3 for alleged misconduct in the workplace, it said.

Wu allegedly ordered a female assistant on four occasions to give him a massage and required three other assistants, all women, to run personal errands for him, such as planning the itinerary of his personal trip to Hong Kong and making afternoon tea reservations, the Control Yuan said.

An investigation has found that Wu also verbally bullied several junior judges, it added.

During the investigation, Wu approached his assistants to make sure their accounts of the incident matched his, causing them to fear that the investigation would be unfair and tainting judicial credibility, the Control Yuan said.

However, Chou, who supervises Wu, knew nothing of Wu’s behavior until the Judicial Yuan’s Government Ethics Department informed him of it in June last year, prompting Control Yuan members to suspect that he had been negligent and demand that Judicial Yuan President Hsu Tzong-li (許宗力) enforce stricter supervision.

The Control Yuan hopes to create gender-friendly workplaces by bolstering the notion of gender equality among judges, administrative heads and employees, it said.

Government agencies have to take responsibility and establish gender-friendly systems in the workplace, it added.

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title: Control Yuan urges scrutiny of court chief


content_text:
Virus Outbreak: Italian envoy expresses hope for virus recovery

Italian Representative to Taiwan Davide Giglio said he hopes his country would be the first to emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic after it became the first European country to be hit by the virus.

“Having been hit the first in Europe, Italy now hopes to be among the first, if not outright the first, to ride this storm out,” Giglio told the Central News Agency in an interview.

“The COVID-19 epidemic has been raging in northern Italy, particularly in Lombardy, which is the economic heart of the country,” he said. “It is a region with strong business interactions worldwide, hence the reason the contagion appeared there first.”

According to the latest WHO figures, Italy has 47,021 confirmed cases, the highest in Europe and the second-highest globally after China. It also has the highest number of deaths worldwide at 4,032.

The entire country entered lockdown on March 9, two weeks after Lombardy became the first administrative region to be sealed off.

Despite the dire news, Giglio believes the situation is improving.

“Remarkable progress has been made there [Lombardy] in containing [the disease] thanks to unprecedented measures taken by the Italian government, which has put the country into a lockdown,” Giglio said.

The people of Italy “have shown amazing cohesiveness, discipline, empathy, in some case even good humor when dealing with the limitations to their traditional way of life that have been imposed by the authorities,” he said.

“Italy has become a model, as the same measures taken there have been later adopted also by other important European countries,” he added.

“We are a uniquely resilient nation. I am confident that Italy will overcome even this challenge.”

He rejected the perception in the local Chinese-language media that Italy has become a “vector” of contagion, saying that his country is a victim.

“Characterizing Italy and the Italians as vectors of the contagion is untrue and insensitive. This emergency is not of Italy’s making,” he said. “COVID-19 landed at Italy’s doorstep as it has at Taiwan’s and both sides have been doing their best to deal with the situation.”

Another misconception is skepticism over the safety of Italian products, which cannot serve as a possible vehicle of contagion, he said.

While acknowledging that people-to-people interactions in Italy and Taiwan have been affected by the outbreak since January, Giglio said that “it is unreasonable to make unnecessary obstacles to the displacement of goods and to the regular development of bilateral trade.”

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title: Speed control system to help save leopard cats

taiwan-subdivisions: 造橋 卓蘭

content_text:
The Directorate-General of Highways is installing an average speed control system along a section of Highway No. 13 in Miaoli County to prevent leopard cats being killed by traffic.

The system would be ready for use by the end of June, the agency said.

Following a grace period, police would start cracking down on drivers speeding along the section, which passes through Zaociao Township (造橋), it said.

Veterinarian Chiu Chih-chang treats an injured leopard found on Highway No. 6 in Miaoli County in an undated photograph.
 Photo courtesy of Chiu Chih-chang

From March 15, the speed limit on the section was reduced to 50kph at night, from 60kph, the agency said, adding that the average speed control system should further reduce the number of animals killed by vehicles.

The agency said that it has also worked with experts at the Council of Agriculture’s Endemic Species Research Institute and National Chung Hsing University to develop the nation’s first roadkill alert system, which uses artificial intelligence technology, and light and sound sensors.

Since May last year, it has used the alert system to monitor a section of Highway No. 3 in Miaoli’s Jhuolan Township (卓蘭), where leopard cats appear frequently.

Leopard cats are classified as a level 1 endangered species in Taiwan and are active in the hilly areas in Taichung and Nantou and Miaoli counties, the agency said.

Because the natural habitats of leopard cats are sundered by highways, they are often killed by traffic, it added.

The agency said that it has adopted several measures to ensure the safety of the endangered species along highways, including building animal passages and erecting protective netting.

Experts from the institute have also assisted the agency in identifying the best locations to place bulletin boards to remind drivers to slow down, it said.

In other developments, an adult male leopard cat that was severely injured on Highway No. 6 on Jan. 25 was returned to the wild on Wednesday last week after being treated at the institute, the agency said.

The injured leopard cat was found on a cold and rainy night by a driver on a section of the highway near Miaoli City, the agency said, adding that other drivers also stopped their vehicles to help, covering the leopard cat with a towel, holding an umbrella over it and directing the traffic.

The leopard cat was grazed and bruised and had cuts on its mouth and tongue, Miaoli County’s Agriculture Department said, adding that it also had a concussion.

Veterinarians operated and used hyperbaric oxygen therapy to stabilize it, the department said, adding that it was later sent to the institute.

The agency said that it produced a film documenting the leopard cat’s recovery and its return to its natural habitat, which can be viewed at http://a1.pise.pw/QTKKA.

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CPC Corp, Taiwan (CPC, 台灣中油) yesterday announced price cuts of NT$1.3 per liter for gasoline products and NT$1.5 per liter for diesel products, effective today, as a plunge in global crude oil prices continued last week.

The drop in prices was fed by weak demand for oil linked to the spread of COVID-19 and a price dispute between two of the biggest producers in the world — Saudi Arabia and Russia — after they failed to reach an agreement earlier this month to curb production levels, CPC said in a statement.

Based on CPC’s weighted oil price formula — composed of 70 percent Dubai crude and 30 percent Brent crude — its average crude oil costs fell to US$28.01 per barrel last week, from US$33.66 a week earlier.

After factoring in the depreciation of the New Taiwan dollar, which was down NT$0.187 against the US dollar last week, fuel prices would be reduced by 13.02 percent this week, CPC said.

From today, prices at CPC gas stations are to be NT$19.0, NT$20.5 and NT$22.5 per liter for 92, 95 and 98-octane unleaded gasoline respectively, while premium diesel is to cost NT$16.2 per liter, it said.

Formosa Petrochemical Corp (台塑石化) also lowered its fuel prices by the same amount, cutting its 92, 95 and 98-octane unleaded gasoline prices to NT$19.0, NT$20.4 and NT$22.5 per liter respectively, with premium diesel dropping to NT$16.0 per liter.

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title: CPC, Formosa to reduce gasoline and diesel prices


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EXPANDING CLAMPDOWN:
 Time’s editor-in-chief said that it opposes the expulsion and intimidation of journalists, while the Voice of America declined further comment

Authorities in Beijing have forced at least seven Chinese nationals to stop working for US news outlets in the city, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists, the latest development in an ongoing dispute between the US and China over media access.

Members of the New York Times, Voice of America and two other outlets were dismissed from their jobs on Thursday and Friday, the group said, identifying only the newspaper and the US Congress-funded broadcaster.

China on Tuesday expelled more than a dozen American journalists working for the Times, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) and the Washington Post in response to a cap being placed on how many Chinese journalists are allowed to be stationed in the US.

New York Times Beijing bureau chief Steven Lee Myers takes a photograph of Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Geng Shuang during a daily press briefing at the ministry in Beijing on Wednesday.
 Photo: AFP

The tit-for-tat exemplifies how fraught US-China ties have become despite the signing of a phase-one trade deal in January and calls for more global cooperation to contain COVID-19.

In addition to media, the countries have also feuded over the use of “Chinese virus” by US officials to describe the outbreak and an assertion by a Chinese official that the US military spread the virus.

Foreign news outlets in China are barred from directly employing Chinese nationals.

They are instead employed through the Beijing Personnel Service Corp for Diplomatic Missions, which is affiliated with the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

It was this agency that dismissed members of US media in the past few days, the Washington-based committee said.

When asked on Thursday at the ministry’s daily press briefing if the local employees of US outlets had been told their work credentials were being revoked, spokesman Geng Shuang (耿爽) said relevant authorities manage the employees of foreign media in accordance with laws and regulations.

The ministry on Tuesday also ordered the Times, the WSJ, the Post, Voice of America and Time magazine to submit written declarations about their staff, operations, finances and real estate in China.

That was in retaliation for the US last month ordering five Chinese state-owned media to be classified as “foreign missions.”

In response to a request for comment, a spokesperson for Voice of America confirmed the committee’s statement while declining further comment.

A spokesperson for the Post referred to an earlier statement by executive editor Martin Baron condemning the expulsion of reporters.

Time editor-in-chief Edward Felsenthal, in a statement provided by a spokesperson, said the outlet opposed the expulsion and intimidation of journalists.

A WSJ spokesperson declined to comment while the Times did not immediately respond to queries.

A spokesperson for Bloomberg, which has news bureaus in Beijing and Shanghai, also declined to comment.

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title: PRC orders local staff out of US media offices in Beijing


title: Virus Outbreak: NHS could be overwhelmed: Boris

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Britain’s National Health Service (NHS) could be “overwhelmed” by COVID-19 similar to the Italian health system in just two weeks, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson said as the death toll rises.

In Italy, the worth-hit country, almost 5,000 have died, while in the UK, 233 have died from the virus.

“The numbers are very stark, and they are accelerating. We are only a matter of weeks — two or three — behind Italy,” he said.

“Unless we act together, unless we make the heroic and collective national effort to slow the spread, then it is all too likely that our own NHS will be similarly overwhelmed,” he said.

Italy overtook China as the country worst affected by the highly contagious virus on Thursday. The Italian government has ordered that all businesses must close until April 3 in its latest effort to halt the epidemic.

Johnson’s government has closed schools for most pupils, told pubs and restaurants to shut and asked people to avoid unnecessary social interactions, so that intensive care units in the country’s state health care system can handle the epidemic.

Yesterday, the government asked up to 1.5 million people identified as being most at risk to stay at home for at least 12 weeks. Health officials advised those with underlying health conditions such as bone or blood cancers, cystic fibrosis, or who have had an organ transplant to do all they can to shield themselves from the virus.

“People should stay at home, protect our NHS and save lives,” Communities secretary Robert Jenrick said in a statement.

On Saturday, the NHS struck a deal with the independent hospital sector, giving the institution more ventilators and thousands of extra beds and healthcare staff on hand from next week.

Johnson cautioned that even the best hospitals could be overwhelmed by COVID-19.

“The Italians have a superb health-care system, and yet their doctors and nurses have been completely overwhelmed by the demand,” Johnson said.

He told people to stay away from elderly parents yesterday, which is Mothering Sunday in Britain.

“The single best present that we can give ... is to spare them the risk of catching a very dangerous disease,” he said.

Additional reporting by AFP

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LEAKS:
 The proposal’s scope should be expanded, as it is too personal, a lawmaker said, while another said safeguards are needed to protect sensitive information

Three Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) legislators on Friday proposed amending the Legislators’ Conduct Act (立法委員行為法) to require lawmakers who have attended political conclaves in China to be transparent about their upcoming visits to the country.

The proposal came after Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Wu Sz-huai (吳斯懷) sparked controversy by asking for confidential military information from the Ministry of National Defense.

The amendment, sponsored by DPP legislators Lai Jui-lung (賴瑞隆), Su Chen-ching (蘇震清) and Rosalia Wu (吳思瑤), states that as China has not renounced compromising Taiwan’s territory or security, lawmakers who have attended a conclave and could have accessed Taiwan’s national secrets must report to the Legislative Yuan Secretariat their upcoming trips to China and publish their schedules online for public viewing.

Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator-at-large Wu Sz-huai wipes his forehead during a meeting at the Legislative Yuan in Taipei on March 13.
 Photo: Liao Chen-huei, Taipei Times

The legislature’s Judiciary and Organic Laws and Statutes Committee is to review the proposal.

The ministry on Thursday confirmed that Wu had requested confidential information.

Local Chinese-language media quoted a high-ranking officer as saying that the request included materials on cyberdefense units at the new Information and Electronic Warfare Command, and troop deployments for all three major branches of the armed forces, as well as updates on combined service units and military operations plans.

The ministry reportedly sent officials to brief Wu in his office regarding the information he had requested.

The draft amendment would also require lawmakers who are part of a conclave to report their “related party”: assistant, spouse, direct or lateral family member within two degrees of consanguinity, as well as, if any, the trustee of their assets.

Lawmakers who leak information during a conclave or a trip to China, Hong Kong or Macau, and who do not notify the secretariat of their trip would face the legislature’s Discipline Committee and a judicial investigation, the amendment says.

Asked about the proposal, Lai said that as Chinese infiltration tactics improve, Taiwan should improve its protection of classified information, especially from the reach of “pro-China” lawmakers.

However, as cross-strait exchanges could not be completely avoided, the proposal seeks to bolster public scrutiny by requiring lawmakers to publish details of their trips to China, he said.

Asked whether the proposal was targeting Wu, Lai did not give a direct answer, saying that there is a general distrust of Wu among his colleagues.

Even the KMT caucus has asked more tenured lawmakers to remain in the Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee to decrease the chances of Wu landing a seat on the committee, he said.

Lai called on the KMT caucus to support his proposal, which he said would “save them a lot of trouble” if passed.

Reached for comment, Wu said that all legislators should be kept in check, without elaborating.

KMT caucus secretary-general Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安) said that the proposal should clearly define what it means by a “conclave.”

He asked whether secret meetings held by the legislature’s Economics Committee over procurement plans would also count as conclaves.

If data leakage is the problem, then the scope of the proposed amendment should include nations and territories other than China, Hong Kong and Macau, he said, adding that a legal amendment should be all-encompassing and must be approached with more prudence.

China has not stopped threatening the nation, and if lawmakers leak national secrets they are let in on by virtue of their position, it would negatively affect the nation, New Power Party caucus whip Chiu Hsien-chih (邱顯智) said.

The tensions between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait call for safeguards when it comes to the protection of sensitive information, Taiwan People’s Party caucus whip Jang Chyi-lu (張其祿) said.

However, the proposal is too personal and its scope needs to be more clearly defined to avoid it having overly deep implications, he said.

DPP caucus whip Ker Chien-ming (柯建銘) said that the proposal was filed under the names of individual lawmakers, not the caucus, which is open to the proposed amendment.

Additional reporting by staff writer

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title: Proposal seeks tighter controls on ‘conclave’ attendees

people: 蘇震清 吳斯懷 柯建銘 賴瑞隆 蔣萬安 張其祿 邱顯智 吳思瑤


title: Life insurers face uphill battle this year

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DOWNSIDE RISKS:
 Firms have a ‘very low’ chance of boosting investment returns in the next two years, making it hard for them to improve their capitalization, an analyst said

Taiwanese life insurers wanting to improve their capital structure face strong headwinds this year, given prolonged low interest rates and economic impacts derived from trade protectionism and the COVID-19 pandemic, Taiwan Ratings Corp (中華信評) said on Friday.

The local life insurance sector also still has high asset risks and such risks are susceptible to market volatility, the local arm of Standard & Poor’s Global Ratings said.

Since last year, major financial holding companies — including CTBC Financial Holding Co (中信金控), Cathay Financial Holding Co (國泰金控) and Shin Kong Financial Holding Co (新光金控) — have announced plans to raise fresh capital to bolster the financial strength of their banking and insurance subsidiaries.

This came as financial holdings were faced with increased market volatility due to the US-China trade dispute and implementation of new International Financial Reporting Standards.

Cathay Life Insurance Co (國泰人壽), for instance, reported that its capital position was solid, with a risk-based capital ratio of 346 percent as of Dec. 31 last year, up from 292 percent at the end of 2018, and that its risk-bearing ability improved with the net worth-to-assets ratio rising to 9.2 percent last year from 2.6 percent a year earlier.

While stronger economic activity and greater stability in capital markets had helped life insurers shore up their capital buffers last year, the sector’s average capitalization remains slightly weaker than in 2017, Taiwan Ratings said, adding that there are more challenges this year for insurers given increased credit risk due to COVID-19.

“We expect increased downside risk for Taiwan life insurers, given the likelihood of greater capital market volatility over the coming few months,” Taiwan Ratings credit analyst Patty Wang (王珮齡) said in a news release. “Tough operating conditions, weak investment returns and continued high asset risk pose significant headwinds for insurers to sustain the improvement in capital and earnings made in 2019.”

The ratings agency said that capitalization has long been a key rating weakness for the life insurance sector, whereas insurers still carry significant asset risks.

Meanwhile, the long-term mismatch between insurers’ assets and liabilities is a legacy issue, which could lead to higher losses if market prices experience larger fluctuations, hindering their efforts to restore capital levels, it said.

“Despite legacy issues affecting the sector’s capitalization, we believe insurers’ efforts to slow business growth and employ more rigid capital rules could somewhat offset these downside risks,” Wang said. “Nonetheless, the very low likelihood of improving investment returns over the coming two years poses a significant challenge for insurers to improve their capitalization.”

Taiwan Ratings said that its assessment of the life insurance sector’s capitalization and earnings ranges from fair to satisfactory for this year and next year.

However, this means that businesses in the sector are lagging behind most of their Asia-Pacific peers, it said.

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title: [ LETTER ]

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Delaying school start times

As Taiwan continues to take more and more measures to prevent a COVID-19 outbreak, the negative effect of sleep deprivation on the immune system should not be ignored.

While individuals’ bad habits are beyond the scope of systemic intervention, the government should look at reforming public systems that cause sleep deprivation. High school start times are one such system.

We know that teenagers have a delayed circadian rhythm, known as a “sleep phase delay.” This causes teens’ melatonin to be released about two hours later than the average adult.

As a result, even if teens go to bed early, they do not get good quality sleep until the early hours of the morning.

Forcing teens to start school at 8am is like forcing an adult to begin work at 6am. As such, there is an entire demographic in Taiwan operating in a state of chronic sleep deprivation.

The global COVID-19 pandemic should be a time to re-evaluate this practice and make adjustments.

The American Medical Association recommends that high schools and middle schools begin no earlier than 8:30am.

A study carried out in UK schools found that delaying start times from 8:30am to 10am halved student illness.

There are those who would argue that delaying start times would hurt academic performance, but the opposite is true. There are dozens of case studies that show grades go up when schools begin later; adequate sleep is not only crucial to good health, but also to effective cognitive function.

Furthermore, a later start time for high schoolers would relieve stress on public infrastructure by staggering peak traffic hours and would make public transit systems less crowded at a time when everyone is encouraged to practice “social distancing.”

It is time to move back start times for high schools and middle schools to give teenagers’ immune systems a fighting chance against COVID-19.

Charlie Taylor

Taitung

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Passengers on domestic flights would not be allowed to board if their temperature is more than 37.5°C or if they refuse to have their temperatures taken, Uni Air (立榮航空) and Mandarin Airlines (華信航空) said yesterday.

The two airlines made the announcement after their parent companies — EVA Airways (長榮航空) and China Airlines (CAL, 中華航空) respectively — announced similar pre-boarding requirements on Saturday, along with a requirement that passengers wear masks during their flights, except when they have meals or drinks.

Uni Air and Mandarin Airlines said domestic passengers would be required to wear masks from the time they start using self-help kiosks to check into their flights until they leave the airport at their destinations.

A man stands in front of a Uni Air counter clerk at Tainan Airport yesterday.
 Photo: Wang Chun-chung, Taipei Times

Beverage services on flights have been suspended, they said.

Online check-in would be temporarily suspended from today until Tuesday next week, and all passengers are required to check-in at airport counters, they said.

CAL and EVA said that they would comply with the government’s policy banning all transit passengers from tomorrow to April 7, adding that their main priority is to repatriate Taiwanese tourists, students and businesspeople.

Several airlines have decided to suspend flights to Taiwan amid plummeting demand and increasingly tight border controls around the world.

Thai AirAsia on Saturday said it was canceling all international flights from Wednesday to April 25, including its Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport-Chiang Mai route.

AirAsia said its Taoyuan-Sabah flights and Kaohsiung International Airport-Kuala Lumpur flights, as well as all long-haul flights starting with the code D7, would be canceled until Tuesday next week, while flights from Taoyuan to Nagoya, Japan, would be canceled until April 24.

Jetstar Asia Airways said it was suspending all flights from today to April 15, and Malinda Air said its Taoyuan-Kuala Lumpur flights would be canceled through April 30.

CAL said it would cancel all its Taoyuan-Delhi flights until May.

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title: Virus Outbreak: New rules for domestic flights announced


content_text:
Virus Outbreak: Fewer travelers at Taoyuan airport than during SARS

The number of passengers passing through Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport on Saturday fell below the daily average during the height of the SARS epidemic in 2003, the National Immigration Agency said yesterday.

Only about 7,800 people traveled through the nation’s main international gateway, about 1,700 passengers fewer than the 9,500 who used the airport a day earlier.

That daily traffic was well below the 9,300 passengers handled on average by the airport in May 2003 at the height of the SARS epidemic, when economic activity in Taiwan and in the region ground to a halt, NIA statistics showed.

Passengers at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport yesterday wear protective suits, masks and goggles.
 Photo: CNA

Passenger numbers at Taoyuan airport have been falling since Taiwan and governments worldwide began imposing travel restrictions to limit the spread of COVID-19.

Saturday’s passenger traffic at Taoyuan airport was far below the average daily traffic of 133,300 passengers in January — which was nearly identical to last year’s average of 133,400 passengers — and an estimated 70,000 passengers per day last month.

Because of declining demand, airlines have been cutting capacity, and yesterday, about three-quarters of scheduled arrivals and departures at Taoyuan airport were canceled, leaving only about 160 flights operating, the airport’s Web site said.

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content_text:
CASE COUNT RISES:
 One of the new domestic cases is a nurse at a long-term care center, but so far tests on all the residents and other staff have been negative

Flight transits through all Taiwanese airports would be banned for two weeks, starting tomorrow, the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) said yesterday as it announced 16 new confirmed cases of COVID-19, bringing the nation’s total to 169.

Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中), head of the center, said all flight transits would be banned through April 7.

In light of the rapidly increasing number of imported COVID-19 cases, there was a need to further reduce cross-border travel and the risk of disease transmission, the center said.

Visitors to a New Taipei City columbarium yesterday present offerings and pray, with tables spaced further apart than normal for social distancing as part of COVID-19 disease prevention measures.
 Photo: Chiu Shu-li, Taipei Times

The Civil Aeronautics Administration has informed airlines about the new measures, and anyone who has not boarded their flight by 12am tomorrow in Taipei would not be permitted to make a connection in Taiwan, said Deputy Minister of the Interior Chen Tsung-yen (陳宗彥), deputy head of the center.

The number of travelers entering Taiwan dropped from about 9,000 people on Thursday to about 5,000 people on Saturday, the majority of whom are Taiwanese and a very few Alien Resident Certificate (ARC) or special permit holders.

Information on all returning travelers who are being placed under mandatory home quarantine is being synced with the National Police Agency’s “M-Police” mobile phone integrated query system, so that when police conduct spot checks, they can easily identify people who are under quarantine, Chen Tsung-yen said.

Deputy Minister of Health and Welfare Hsueh Jui-yuan, third left, speaks at the Central Epidemic Command Center’s daily news conference yesterday in Taipei as Centers for Disease Control Director-General Chou Jih-haw, left, and Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung, right, listen.
 Photo: Chien Jung-fong, Taipei Times

The health minister said the 16 latest cases were 13 imported ones and three domestic, including a nurse at a long-term care center, the health minister said.

Deputy Minister of Health and Welfare Hsueh Jui-yuan (薛瑞元) said the nurse, who is in her 20s and had not been abroad recently, developed a fever, weakness and dizziness on March 12, sought treatment on Monday and Friday last week, and tested positive on Saturday.

All 81 people at the care center — 53 residents and 28 staff — were tested by the CECC on Saturday night, and the results so far have all been negative, he said.

The care center’s residents were all relocated to single rooms at a hospital and two quarantine centers yesterday afternoon, while the staff were ordered to isolate at home for 14 days, Hsueh said.

Chen Shih-chung said the center took immediate action after the nurse tested positive out of concern that as a long-term care facility, her workplace could lead to a cluster of cases, and employees of the Ministry of Health and Welfare’s Taoyuan General Hospital and Linkou Chang Gung Memorial Hospital worked overnight to complete the testing.

The other two domestic cases are a German researcher and an Austrian researcher who attended a meeting with the nation’s 124th case, another researcher at the same institute — and a professor who visited the US from March 1 to March 10 and tested positive yesterday, he said.

Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Director-General Chou Jih-haw (周志浩) said that as the professor was the first to experience COVID-19 symptoms — on March 14 — authorities consider him to be the source of infection for four cases at the institute.

Of Taiwan’s confirmed cases, 36 are domestic and 133 imported, but the infection source of six of the domestic cases is not yet known, including the nurse’s, while the first three did not lead to further infections, Chen Shih-chung said.

The remaining three — the 100th, 134th and 156th — might have higher risks of transmission in local communities, so the CECC is conducting contact investigations to clarify them, he said.

“We still define the current situation as sporadic local transmission,” he said when reporters asked if Taiwan has entered the “community spread” stage.

people: 陳宗彥 陳時中

title: Virus Outbreak: Flight transfers via Taiwan banned