With One Domestic Case a Day, the Gov’t Still Insists that It’s "Sporadic" Individual Cases

With One Domestic Case a Day, the Gov’t Still Insists that It’s "Sporadic" Individual Cases

United Daily News Editorial (Taipei, Taiwan)

April 6, 2020

 Translation of an Excerpt

During the Tomb Sweeping Day long weekend, many tourist attractions witnessed swarming crowds; the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) issued an emergency "national level warning", urging the public to keep social distancing when entering Kenting, Alishan and other tourist spots. With such a vital measure, CECC director Chen Shih-chung could not conduct timely control deployment prior to the holidays, demonstrating that both the government and the people’s alert mentality tended to be relaxed. More seriously, domestic new coronavirus pneumonia cases recently increased without end; Chen Shih-chung, nevertheless, never changed his old tune, saying that these were merely "sporadic individual cases". Wasn’t this self-deceiving while deceiving others?

Observing the recent "domestic confirmed cases", they have nearly increased daily from one or two cases, the majority among which have never really traced the sources of infection. Especially worrisome is that the identity of these domestic infected patients came from north and south; thus, if these loopholes could not be closed and stopped, once the dike collapsed, causing community infections, would the government still be able to rescue in time?

Would the swarming crowds of tourists during the last weekend ignite a domestic infection crisis is something waiting to be observed. However, with the increase of "a domestic case a day", it truly heightens people’s tensions; we are afraid that the relaxed mental defenses on the part of the government and the people will become a gap in the prevention and control of the pandemic.

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