By KHT Staff
KAOHSIUNG — A political public relations worker who admitted spreading false hantavirus statistics through a Kaohsiung Facebook page has received one-year deferred prosecution, with conditions including a public correction and a NT$30,000 payment.
The man, identified by his surname Liu (劉), operated “Wetalk Kaohsiung” (Wetalk高雄). According to CNA’s account of the prosecutors’ decision, he posted claims on May 6 that Kaohsiung had recorded approximately 18–20 hantavirus syndrome cases since 2020, almost five times the combined figure for Taipei and New Taipei.
The post cited figures from Taiwan’s Centers for Disease Control. The Investigation Bureau said Kaohsiung’s Health Bureau issued a correction on May 8, rejecting the claims.
At the time, the Health Bureau reported 14 confirmed cases between 2019 and 2024, with none in 2025 or in 2026 as of its May announcement. Those figures describe the situation when the correction was issued, rather than the current case count. Contemporaneous reporting detailed the bureau’s statistics.
During questioning, Liu acknowledged that his post was false and that the Health Bureau’s statistics were correct, prosecutors said. He told investigators he worked in political public relations and received a salary from a city councilor, although he was not formally registered as an assistant.
TVBS reported that the councilor belonged to the Kuomintang. The councilor was not named in the cited reports, which did not establish that the councilor directed or approved the post.
Prosecutors considered Liu’s admission and deletion of the post in granting deferred prosecution under the Communicable Disease Control Act (傳染病防治法). He must pay NT$30,000 into the public treasury, attend one legal education session, and publish a correction on the page.
The disposition postpones prosecution subject to conditions; it is not a court conviction or a suspended prison sentence.
