Taiwan downgrades Covid alert response to level two
Taiwan is downgrading its Covid response to level two from Tuesday, July 27, though some restrictions will remain in place. Taiwan saw 10 local cases on Monday, July 26 and zero deaths, the second-straight day of zero deaths, and 18 local cases today, July 28, as well as zero deaths.
However, Taiwan has a high Covid death rate which is one of the world’s highest, with a lot of senior cases, lack of preparation, and hospital funding restrictions being among the factors, according to Bloomberg.
Taiwanese athletes have won six medals so far in the Tokyo Olympics, including one gold in women’s weightlifting, two silver, one of which was in men’s team archery team, and three bronze. This is already Taiwan’s best medal haul ever at an Olympics, surpassing the previous record of five. Most of us might know this already, but for those who don’t, this is why Taiwan’s name and (ROC) anthem are not used in the Olympics.
The US will have no chance of stopping a Chinese invasion of Taiwan, claims this (over)confident Chinese expert on Chinese state television, according to Newsweek.
Major ports in Taiwan, including that in the central city of Taichung, may be targets of the Chinese military during an invasion, according to a new report put out by expert Ian Easton, as reported by Forbes.
Also from Forbes is this article claiming that China is assembling a huge flotilla comprising modified civilian ships in preparation for a future invasion of Taiwan.
Unemployment jumped by a record amount in Taiwan in June due to the semi-lockdown.
Taiwan’s economy is projected to grow by over 5 percent in 2021, according to Academia Sinica.
The isolation of semi-lockdown forced Malaysian-born director Tsai Ming-liang to turn to painting in his Taipei “renovated ruin,” as profiled in Nikkei Asia.