Isolation for COVID patients to be reduced to five days starting Nov. 14

Isolation for COVID patients to be reduced to five days starting Nov. 14

2022-11-02

Starting Nov. 14, the duration of isolation for people who catch COVID will be reduced to five days, down from the current seven days. The decision was reached at a meeting on Wednesday, during which CECC officials and a panel of experts finally reached a consensus on the matter. Let’s hear from the CECC.

Victor Wang
CECC
The daily tally has been going down over the past four weeks. The trend is extremely clear. So it’s only now that COVID is at a controllable stage that we can consider doing something like this. The experts always discuss how infectious the virus is after a certain amount of days. After isolating for five days, patients can go out freely, regardless of whether they test positive or negative on a rapid test. If you test negative, however, you don’t have to do self-health management.

The isolation rules will be relaxed in two stages. Currently, patients have to isolate for seven days followed by another seven days of self-health management. From Nov. 7 to Nov. 13, self-health management rules will be eased. Patients can end their self-health management period as soon as they get a negative result on a rapid test. Then starting Nov. 14, the isolation period will be reduced to five days.

指揮中心拍板! 11/14起確診者隔離縮短至5天

2022-11-02

本土確診數連四週下降，指揮中心專家小組上午開會有共識，建議確診者的居家照護天數，可從七天縮短為五天，指揮官王必勝也拍板，新制11/14上路。

[[疫情指揮中心指揮官王必勝]]
“連續四週的下降，我想下降的趨勢是非常明確，那在疫情可控的情況之下，才會去考慮這些事情，專家也一定會針對這些病毒在幾天會有多少的傳染力，去做相關的討論。(隔離)五天之後就是可以出門了，不管篩陰篩陽都可以出門，只是說你篩陰的話不用自主管理。”

居家照護措施，預計分兩階段放寬。現行規定7+7，必須隔離七天、禁止外出，再搭配七天自主健康管理；而11/7到11/13這週，將變成7+N，雖然隔離天數沒變，但解隔如果快篩陰性，就可免除自主健康管理；等到11/14後、再變5+N，也就是染疫只需隔離五天，就能出門。

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Taiwan can mobilize 200,000 troops in 24 hours after Chinese attack: defense minister

Minister of National Defense Chiu Kuo-cheng answered lawmakers’ questions on Wednesday about Taiwan’s preparedness for a Chinese attack. Chiu stressed that Taiwan’s military was always ready to respond, but would not stir up conflict in the strait. He also added that if needed, Taiwan would be able to mobilize up to 200,000 troops in the 24 hours following a strike by China.

Chiu Kuo-cheng
Defense minister
China won’t win until it has planted its flag on every single government agency. Taiwan’s military will fight to the very end. But we will never be the ones to provoke.

Defense minister Chiu Kuo-cheng once again stated that Taiwan would have a chance at winning against China in a conflict. He added that the military is not afraid of defending Taiwan against an attack, but would also not seek to stir up conflict. In recent days, Chiu has been asked on many occasions to comment on China’s use of intimidation. KMT lawmaker Cheng Li-wen on Wednesday compared a Chinese attack on Taiwan to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which has been going on for almost a year. She asked the minister whether Taiwan would be able to last that long against China without assistance from the U.S.

Cheng Li-wen
KMT lawmaker
For Taiwan, having U.S. assistance or not makes a big difference.

Chiu Kuo-cheng
Minister of national defense
I’d like to report to you all that my opinion has not changed. We’ll rely on ourselves for our defense.

Chiu says he is confident in Taiwan’s self-defense capabilities. Another lawmaker asked him how many troops Taiwan would be able to mobilize in the 24 hours following a strike from China. The number is 200,000, according to Chiu.

Chiu Chen-yuan
Taiwan People’s Party lawmaker
How many troops can be mobilized within 24 hours of an attack?

Chiu Kuo-cheng
Minister of national defense
We can do 200,000 troops. We wouldn’t need that many right away. But we would see the situation in different areas and gradually deploy them. We’ve conducted drills in the past. So it would absolutely be possible to do that in 24 hours.

Amid tensions in the Taiwan Strait, the defense minister explained to lawmakers how Taiwan is ready to defend itself should Beijing attack.

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Taiwanese hiker admires Nepal’s Tilicho Lake and even spends the night

Pingtung hiking enthusiast Domi Wang recently made headlines for summiting the mountain by Nepal’s Tilicho Lake, the highest lake in the world. The 34-year-old photographer also managed to camp beside the frozen lake. Few hikers attempt the challenging journey. Let’s hear more from Wang now.

Mug of coffee in hand, Domi Wang looks out over Nepal’s Tilicho Lake, the highest in the world.

Pingtung native Wang is serious about hiking. On her recent trip to Nepal, she achieved her dream of camping overnight on the mountain beside Tilicho Lake.

Domi Wang
Hiking enthusiast
What was hard was trying to camp by the lake, because there’s absolutely nowhere to spend the night. Generally people choose to just walk up it and leave the same day.

Hiking at such high altitudes is extremely taxing. The path takes hikers across rocky slopes at temperatures of minus 5 degrees Celsius. That’s enough to freeze a camera fast, a serious test of will.

Domi Wang
Hiking enthusiast
I really wanted to stay overnight by the lake, so I carried up a lot of camping things to the high altitude. It weighed about 15 kilograms or so. Carrying that for a week is pretty uncomfortable – kind of tiring. You have to train for it.

A hike like this is not as financially expensive as climbing one of the highest mountains in the world. But saving up for the trip was still a big project.

Domi Wang
Hiking enthusiast
It counts as a normal walk, what we call a normal hike. It’s not like the kind of walks experts do, where you might need to acquire a lot of sponsorship and organize a team, and expenses are several million NT dollars. My trip to Tilicho cost about NT$170,000. Of course, that’s not exactly cheap. I did all kinds of casual work beforehand to save up money to go travelling.

On her hike, Wang also ran into Nepalese off-road motorcyclists who were attempting to summit the mountain on their bikes. They made a record for the highest altitude motorcycle ride in Nepal, and Wang caught their celebration on camera. This is surely a trip she’ll never forget.

2022-11-02

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Annual rainfall in Yilan’s Ximao Mountain approaches 10,000mm

The recent inclement weather has brought record rainfall to northeastern regions of the country, including Yilan’s Ximao Mountain, where 4,574 millimeters of rain fell in October alone. Forecasters say rain will continue until Friday, and seasonal winds will persist until Wednesday next week. Temperatures are also expected to drop to the mid teens by next week.

Northeasterly winds, combined with peripheral effects of a recent storm and typhoon, have brought extremely heavy rainfall to Yilan in recent days. Especially hard hit was this mountainous area, which has the highest accumulated rainfall nationwide so far this year.

A post on a Facebook page where people discuss typhoons in Taiwan brought attention to rainfall data collected on Yilan’s Ximao Mountain.

Total rainfall for October reached 4,574 millimeters. That’s the heaviest rainfall recorded by any weather station in Taiwan over the course of the month. Since the beginning of the year, the mountain has seen more than 9,500 millimeters of rain. One meteorologist says the area could see more than 10,000 millimeters before the year ends.

Chen Kao-chu
Yilan weather station
The peripheral effects of typhoons combined with northeasterlies both impacted local weather in the county. There’s also Datong Township in Nan’ao, where there is a windward mountain face that always gets rainfall. On some days more than 1,000 millimeters of rain will fall on that mountain.

Previously, the Central Weather Bureau had named Daping in New Taipei’s Wanli District as the rainiest place in Taiwan. The village gets an average of more than 6,500 millimeters of rain every year. Now that a weather station has been installed on Ximao Mountain, it could be a contender for rainiest place.

Liu Yu-chi
Forecaster
Information from both our manned weather station and our automatic weather sensors confirmed that October rainfall there was the highest. However, the Ximao weather station only has five years’ worth of weather data, and to really understand a location’s weather patterns we need to look at 30 years of data. That’s the only way to get a complete picture of the area’s climate.

As Ximao’s sensors have not been in place for very long, there is not enough historical data to determine whether Ximao could dethrone Daping as the rainiest place in Taiwan. Meanwhile, with rain continuing unabated in Yilan, Keelung and mountainous areas near Taipei, the weather bureau has been issuing heavy rainfall warnings.

Liu Yu-chi
Forecaster
The rain is likely to continue until Friday, and maybe throughout the weekend. There will be some rainfall all across Taiwan. Moisture will start to decrease, and by Monday we should start to see the rain dissipate.

By Wednesday or Thursday, the northeasterlies will begin to weaken and the weather will improve. However, northeasterly winds are expected to pick up again by the end of next week, bringing temperatures down to roughly 16 degrees until Sunday in the plains.

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Seismologist explains how areas of Taiwan are shifting due to plate tectonics

Earlier this week the Central Weather Bureau shared two maps online showing how different areas of Taiwan are moving on the earth’s surface due to plate tectonics. The maps show how some areas of Taiwan have shifted position at a rate of up to 8 centimeters per year between 2009 and 2018. The maps have attracted a lot of attention online, with commenters wondering whether that could mean that Taiwan is slowly drifting away from China into the Pacific.

On Monday evening, another earthquake struck at Taitung’s Donghe Township. Fortunately, no people were hurt. Tremors like these often shake Taiwan, because of the movement of tectonic plates. These ground movements also gradually shift Taiwan’s location in the world.

The Central Weather Bureau recently released two maps showing the absolute speed and relative speed at which different areas of Taiwan moved due to tectonic action between 2009 and 2018. The blue arrows represent the direction of the shift, and their length represents the distance of the movement. The maps left some internet users wondering whether that meant that Taiwan was gradually moving away from China. A seismologist says that’s not the case.

Chao Hsiao-ling
Taiwan Earthquake Research Center
the Eurasian plate covers both west Taiwan and China. They are on the same continental plate, meaning they move in the same direction. Taiwan and China are moving together.

Taiwan is located at the convergent boundary between the Eurasian Plate and the Philippine Sea Plate. Thanks to a network of sensors, researchers found Taipei is moving by 0.5 centimeters every year. Over at the rift valley running through Hualien and Taitung, the speed is 6 centimeters per year. According to the findings, the fastest moving area is Orchid Island, which is shifting toward Taiwan proper at a speed of 8 centimeters per year. The network of 450 sensors provides valuable information on seismic faults and volcanic activity as well as data on subsidence and sliding underground. They hope the data can help scientists find signs that a big earthquake is going to strike. They add that tectonic movements will eventually cause the island of Taiwan to be thinner and more elongated in the future.

Chao Hsiao-ling
Taiwan Earthquake Research Center
This plate is pressing from here, and this other one from over there. So Taiwan will gradually become thinner. Over the short term, it won’t be a difference big enough for anyone to notice a big change.

Seismologists remind that, on a tectonic scale, 10 years is just the blink of an eye. Seeing Taiwan change shape from a sweet potato into a banana will be a matter of several million years, they add.

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Top German chef Thomas Buhner plans to open a restaurant in Taiwan

Top German chef Thomas Buhner plans to open a restaurant in Taiwan! The three Michelin star chef is working with a Taiwanese team to open a restaurant here in 2023. In the last three years he’s come to Taiwan many times, exploring the country and getting to know Taiwanese cuisine. Food experts hope his arrival will bring more elite restaurants to Taiwan.

Tender breast of duck is offset by caramelized pumpkin puree. Spanish carabinero prawns with desiccated persimmons are a many-layered treat. These are Thomas Buhner’s signature dishes. Now Buhner’s restaurant menus will move from Germany to Taiwan.

Thomas Buhner
Michelin chef
I spent, last year, two months in Taiwanese quarantine hotels. So now I am the No. 1 quarantine-hotel-knower in Taiwan. That’s the reason that gave me the chance to explore the island.

Buhner has come to Taiwan for work many times in the last three years, visiting small farmers, and finding Taiwanese flavors to incorporate into his dishes. He even went to New Taipei’s Yingge District to see the ceramics, and tasted local specialties like seafood and beef noodles. But his favorite discovery was oysters with salted black bean paste.

Thomas Buhner
Michelin chef
We visited together a street-food kitchen in Kaohsiung. We have had an oyster dish. For me it was amazing – poached oysters with a sauce based on soy.

Buhner has been a chef for more than 30 years. He received his first Michelin star in 1996, two stars in 1998, and became a three-Michelin-star chef in 2012. He retained the three stars for seven more years, becoming a legend in German culinary circles. Noticing Taiwan’s potential, he has invested his work here, but he doesn’t intend to settle here personally.

Thomas Buhner
Michelin chef
Would I move to Taiwan? No, it’s not possible. Because I have a family in Osnabruck, and my wife – but I would like to share my experience, my vision, my everything, with a young team.

Buhner says he plans to spend 200 days of the next year in Taiwan, bringing his sumptuous menus to Taiwanese diners and attracting more culinary focus to the country.

2022-11-02

Spotlight on Taiwanese chef Cheng Hsien-hao

Today, in our spotlight series, we meet Cheng Hsien-hao, a Taiwanese chef hoping to provide "a slice of home" for expats. Together with an American friend, Cheng has opened up a dessert shop selling apple pies and pumpkin pies. Our very own Stephany Yang joins Cheng in the kitchen to find out what makes their apple pies taste like home.

He mixes the butter and flour thoroughly. Then he adds the dough into a plastic bag and puts it into the refrigerator.

Next, he coats five apples with cinnamon, before heating them all up with butter, water and sugar.

He adds the apple filling into the pie crust and it’s ready to go into the oven to bake. This is Cheng Hsien-hao, co-founder of a dessert shop. Cheng says that one of the keys to making apple pies is preparing and making the pies in an environment of around 18 degrees Celsius or cooler.

Cheng Hsien-hao
Pie baker
The pie needs a really low temperature. It’s also good for me because I get sweaty really easily. So I really like to stay in an environment is always lower temperature. When I finish one step, I need to take the pie into the refrigerator to make it always feel cold. Pie needs patience to make it from the start to the end. Actually, one apple pie needs to spend almost three to four hours to make.

This July, Cheng and his American friend decided to open a dessert shop, selling American-style pies. Cheng says his friend, who is from New York, had failed to find a taste similar to that of his mom’s homemade apple pies in Taiwan, which is why the two decided to make the pies themselves.

Cheng Hsien-hao
Pie baker"
In the past, I also have been to America for a language school for maybe around three months. During that time, I also went to New York and California to try their desserts. I really enjoyed it. When I came back to Taiwan, I met Way. He had the same problem; he couldn’t find the same flavor with his mom’s apple pie. We said, "Maybe we can try making it ourselves." I still remember when he took the pie out of the oven. He tasted it and said, “Finally, we can have a slice of home here in Taiwan.”

Before starting their business, Cheng worked in marketing. His business partner taught English in Taiwan. Cheng says they learned how to make pies by experimenting.

Cheng Hsien-hao
Pie baker
We studied by ourselves because Way already had the flavor in his brand. So we just tried to look at a lot of recipes. We tried again and again. We just try and taste it. Actually, we also spend a lot of time doing other desserts. Our company’s goal is to make people feel that they have the home taste anytime and anywhere in Taiwan. Especially, the feeling of home. Especially, use western ingredients.

The duo hopes that their pies can help their patrons get a taste of home and feel less homesick.

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