On whether the vaccine mandate could be expanded to include restaurants and movie theaters, Chen said it would be okay if individual restaurants or a chain restaurant enforced such rules, but “it would be unsuitable” if several chains imposed them jointly.
So he wants some restaurants to do it, but not all?
Perhaps more to the point, how are the rules supposed to be enforced, and which establishments will be (arbitrarily) selected for checkups if the terms aren’t even clear? Is it left up to individual stores? If so I can’t imagine anybody actually bothering - it’s just another layer of aggravation that the average owner won’t want to pay for. Is it being left deliberately vague so that businesses will enforce the rules more aggressively/cautiously than the law actually allows for? Does the Minister perhaps already know that the “mandate” is not legally enforceable at all?
I think “pissup in a brewery” is the appropriate description here.
I’d visit one of the health centers to show them what you have. I seem to remember somebody posting that they could then input the US data into the Taiwan system. Then at least you’d have more options going forward if you’re here.
This one looks like a reward to the underbelly for “voluntarily” closing down those types of venue during the last scare. Doing it now in advance of potential level 3 after CNY to avoid too much controversy and possibly for the extra business the returning holiday makers will bring…
I’m not sure if there is an app. A few minutes ago I went to the government website to apply for the certificate, here: https://dvc.mohw.gov.tw/vapa/apply/Index.init.ctr
… and it was shockingly easy and straightforward, entering my ARC number (which is NOT one of the updated new numbers - I was worried that would be an issue but it wasn’t).
I eventually got a big screen full of my certificate. I was relieved the certificate shows that I’ve had three shots - since I got the first one very early, I feared it wouldn’t be in the system, but no issues. It’s also got both my English name and Chinese name, which I was worried about - I try to make sure important places know both names, but I don’t always succeed.
It was emailed to me as a ZIP file. The email includes details about the password for the ZIP file. The only hurdle was the default expander application on my Mac failed to open the file; I needed to use a different one that gave me an option to enter a password.
For now my intention is to just keep the PDF handy on my phone (well, Apple / Files / Desktop, I guess). I dunno, maybe I’ll print it out today as well, but I don’t have a color printer at work.
EDIT: slight, slight concern that it doesn’t list which specific vaccines I’ve had - it says I’ve got 3/3, but only lists Moderna, not that the first two were AZ. But I’d be very surprised if that’s an issue. It’s also got all kinds of boilerplate about not being a travel document.
EDIT 2: re: a specific app, there’s a long discussion over in another thread, starting here, over how different apps … don’t seem to work well, with varying degrees of not working. I don’t know if there’s a Taiwan specific one yet. When I search in the Apple App store (and I’m in the Canada store), it’s the typical Apple thing of a million apps with similar names and you can’t be sure if they’re any good. For now I’m not going to worry about connecting anything to an app and will just have the PDF available on my phone.
The password worked fine for me, but when I first clicked on the ZIP file I got an error, I think because that expander app didn’t know what to do with passwords. I used a different app and it was fine. Maybe a different app will work?
BUT I don’t think it matters - the email contains the same PDF you’ve already downloaded from the website; I don’t believe there’s any additional information anyway. I wound up with two identical PDFs, and I edited one to cut it down to just the QR code, in case that’s easier to scan off my phone.
I like the idea of converting it to a JPEG. I’ll be doing that as well.
Hence my confusion - through much of my teens and twenties, when liquor laws in Canada were relatively stricter, “restaurant that serves alcohol” (and especially if you had a couple of drinks before and/or after food) mostly meant pub.
EDIT a day later: boy this is out of context now! It was a query in another thread about where precisely we need this COVID certificate, and what counts as a bar or pub.
Took literally only 2 minutes to get the certificate, super easy and supports English, except for the final pop-up page where you can download the .pdf or send to convenience store for printing (again printing is optional, not necessary at all), but not that big of a deal since it will send a copy to your e-mail in the prior step so you can ignore the final pop-up page.
As I don’t bother with printers these days due to the extortionate cost of ink, I just save the file in question to a USB stick and take a walk down to 7-11 - their Ibon machine has an English part for printing things.
Note depending on how you use phones, I doubt this is necessary; presumably the big thing is the QR code, and if you’ve got that on your phone, that will probably be enough.
(I’ll still be printing it out and sticking it in my main bag, just in case.)
And yeah, printing companies sort of shot themselves in the foot with the ridiculous ink pricing, didn’t they? “Huh, OK, I’ll just use PDFs for everything now.”