Taiwan’s new crown epidemic continues to spread, and the epidemic prevention department spends huge sums of money on publicity to raise doubts
China News Service, Taipei, October 3. The Taiwan authorities’ “epidemic epidemic command center” released data on the 3rd that the number of newly confirmed cases of new coronary pneumonia in Taiwan increased by 17% compared with last Monday. In the past week, the number of new local cases announced by Taiwan every day increased year-on-year compared with the previous week, showing that the epidemic is still in a plateau period.
According to reports from Taiwan media such as the Central News Agency, China Time News Network, and United News Network, the “command center” announced on the 3rd that 33,431 new confirmed cases of new coronary pneumonia were added, including 33,377 local cases and 54 imported cases; another 38 new deaths were added.
The Omicron BA.5 mutant strain brought a new wave of outbreaks. The “command center” said that last week, 93 local cases were sequenced for the virus, and 74 of the Omicron BA.5 mutant strains were detected , the detection rate was 79.6%.
Some Taiwanese media reported that since its establishment in January 2020, the “command center” has spent 790 million yuan (NTD, the same below) for epidemic prevention propaganda, while the health and welfare department of the Taiwan authorities has used the new crown treatment drug “Qingguan No. 1”. The research and development expenditure is only 230 million yuan. In this regard, the outside world questioned whether the propaganda expenses are unique to specific green camp media, and asked to trace the use of funds.
Li Dewei, the public opinion representative of the Chinese Kuomintang, pointed out that it is necessary to announce which media the funds are going to. Zhang Qilu, a public opinion representative of the Taiwan People’s Party, suggested that the health and welfare department should clarify the flow of funds, “it must not be operated in a black box, and must be carefully monitored.”