Daily local Covid cases reach a two-month low as several restrictions are eased

Daily local Covid cases reached a two-month low of 17 today, July 14, though there were also six deaths. While level three is set to continue until July 26, several measures have been relaxed with national parks, and cinemas in Taipei able to open for instance.

TSMC and Hon Hai have agreed a deal to buy 10 million vaccines from BioNTech, which they will donate to Taiwan’s authorities.

Taiwan had managed Covid very well in 2020 and this year, until an outbreak happened in April, which then surged in May and led to an ongoing semi-lockdown, as told by the Guardian’s Helen Davidson.

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Last week, the president of Haiti was assassinated by a group of gunmen who stormed his Port-au-Prince residence in the middle of the night. Those gunmen then fled, with 11 apparently choosing to enter Taiwan’s embassy and hide there before being detected by a guard who called the police on them.

Hong Kong protesters who have fled to Taiwan are finding it hard to settle down or get support due to a lack of a formal law to enable them to formally apply for asylum, reports the Financial Times.

Taiwan has been getting a lot more support in different ways from countries in the Asia-Pacific such as Japan, India and Australia, as highlighted by this expert in Lowy Interpreter.

Japan referred to tensions over Taiwan that threatened regional stability in its annual white paper released on Tuesday, July 13, reports AFP.

A massive amphibious assault fleet means China has the potential to attack Taiwan from several fronts in a future invasion, argues this writer in Forbes.

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Three of four state-run enterprises under the Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA) such as Taipower and CPC Corp earned profits in the first half of this year. Taiwan Water Corp was the exception with losses of over NT$1.36 billion (US$490 million).

Fifty percent of respondents said Covid had significantly reduced their income, according to a survey released by Chinatrust Real Estate.

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Taiwan’s population declined by over 96,000 in the first half of this year. There were 74,609 births but 93,649 deaths between January and the end of June this year.