Covid outbreak still remains serious
Taiwan’s Covid outbreak had seemed to be easing somewhat according to the authorities as lower daily totals were posted during the weekend up to Tuesday. However, Wednesday, June 2, saw rises in both new and backlogged cases with 372 and 177 respectively.
Taiwan’s outbreak is a warning that a zero-Covid strategy is not feasible in the long term, said a Hong Kong-based public health professor to CNBC.
Taiwan’s government has signed a deal to buy 10 million doses of domestically-produced vaccines from two local firms.
An attack from China on Taiwan is not likely anytime soon, but a “political-military crisis” is a possibility later on, which Taiwan will need to prepare for, argues Ian Easton in Taipei Times.
An invasion of Taiwan by China would be an extraordinarily complex and hard-fought operation that would not resemble D-Day, argues this expert in the Diplomat.
Taiwan had two power blackouts in May, due to electrical supply and grid issues, which raises the question of whether the government’s energy transition policy, in which nuclear would be phased out by 2025, is still feasible, as reported in this feature in the Taipei Times.
Drought is likely to become worse in the future due to climate change for Taiwan, which would affect its semiconductor industry which uses a lot of water, reports Forbes.
Heavy rains fell over the weekend, providing some respite from the drought and raising water levels in the reservoirs, though overall levels are still low.
The manufacturing sector expanded in May while the non-manufacturing sector declined after Taiwan instituted a level three alert for the ongoing Covid outbreak.
Weeks into this outbreak, working from home is still not viable for some Taiwanese employees while some small businesses also continue to open, reports Straits Times.