Taiwan mulls delaying 4 referendums as it fights Covid-19 outbreak

Taiwan’s electoral authority is considering postponing four referendums supported by main opposition the Kuomintang in the face of a recent Covid-19 outbreak that on Tuesday brought 54 new infections and eight deaths.

The referendums are supposed to be held on August 28. Taiwanese will vote on putting the island’s suspended fourth nuclear power plant back into service, reinstating the recently lifted ban on importing pork containing the growth and leanness agent ractopamine, allowing future referendums to be held alongside major elections, and relocating a natural gas terminal from a proposed site off the northern Taiwan coast.

Since late April, the island has been battling a spike in coronavirus cases that in May prompted the authorities to raise the alert to level 3 of the island’s four-tier system and impose a soft lockdown, which has since been extended several times, the latest running until July 12.

The emergence of new clusters of infections in the southern county of Pingtung, this time attributed to the highly aggressive Delta variant, has threatened to further prolong the soft lockdown, with some medical experts predicting the outbreak will last for several more months.