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In Taiwan, there are three types of epidemic response measures that restrict physical movements.
PHOTO: EPA-EFE
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Taiwan seeks to fine quarantine violators
TAIPEI • Taiwan's Cabinet is seeking Parliament approval to penalise those who violate quarantine measures by up to NT$1 million (S$46,100).
Violations against the 14-day mandated quarantine will be punishable by NT$200,000 to NT$1 million. Those who violate a home isolation order, which has less stringent rules, could be fined between NT$100,000 and NT$1 million.
THE CHINA POST/ASIA NEWS NETWORK
Focus on China's crucial planting season
BEIJING • Chinese Premier Li Keqiang told local governments to make sure farmers do not miss the crucial grain-planting season during a critical time for controlling the spread of the coronavirus.
Officials are worried the epidemic could spread to rural areas where medical facilities are less developed than in urban locales.
"If we miss the planting season, we'll be unable to make up for it, which will have an impact on the economic foundation and social stability of the whole year," Mr Li said in a release on Wednesday. "We are holding the rice bowl for 1.4 billion people in our own hands."
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Malaysian man loses $89,000 in mask scam
SIBU (Sarawak) • A businessman lost RM266,153 (S$89,000) in a scam when he tried to purchase 20,000 face masks on the Internet.
Sibu police said yesterday the 36-year-old victim was asked by a friend in Singapore to find face masks as the Republic had run out of stock.
The victim wrote on his Facebook page that he was looking for face masks and was contacted by a person named Heston Seah, said Sibu police chief Stanley Jonathan Ringgit.
Seah claimed he was selling the masks at $14 per box and the victim paid for 20,000 boxes.
But his Singaporean friend did not receive the items and Seah disappeared, the police chief said.
THE STAR/ASIA NEWS NETWORK
Americans trust govt can handle outbreak
WASHINGTON • More than three in four Americans say they are very confident or somewhat confident in the US federal government's ability to handle a coronavirus outbreak, a Gallup poll has found, a higher level of confidence than in previous health scares.
The results were from a Feb 3 to 16 poll that began just days after the United States announced it would suspend entry of foreign nationals who had been to China in the previous two weeks.
REUTERS
