The past few months have seen an unprecedented crisis unfold across most continents. The coronavirus pandemic and the disease it causes, COVID-19, have infected nearly 1.6 million people and led to more than 100,000 deaths. These numbers are expected to rise.
Perhaps just as shocking as the virus and the social and economic destruction it has brought with it is the lack of leadership from China and the US and their mishandling of the situation.
Virus Outbreak: Chen reveals Taiwan’s e-mail to WHO
Taipei Times
Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung at the Central Epidemic Command Center in Taipei yesterday shows a copy of an e-mail that Taiwanese authorities sent to the WHO on Dec. 31 last year regarding the novel coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan, China. Photo: CNA
Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中) yesterday urged the WHO to be honest as the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) published the e-mail it had sent to the world body in December last year alerting it about the risk of an outbreak in China.
At no time since COVID-19 first broke out have Taiwanese or the government made a fuss about how great they are. Rather, they have all been humbly and carefully playing their allotted roles.
Many nations have repeatedly praised Taiwan for its success in keeping the disease under control. Taiwan’s achievements and the recognition it has won make people proud to be Taiwanese.
Members of the Formosa Nation Legal Strategy Association protest in front of the American Institute in Taiwan in Taipei yesterday.
PHOTO: CNA
More than 300 protesters gathered in front of the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) yesterday to urge the US to recognize Taiwan as an incorporated territory and assume full authority for its “military occupation.”
Waving a self-designed US Military Government flag — the shape of Taiwan superimposed on a US flag — the protesters, led by attorney Roger Lin (林志昇), chanted anti-government slogans and called for the expulsion of the Republic of China (ROC) “government-in-exile.”