YouTube influencer Stephen Shiu has been accused of violating Taiwan’s COVID-19 safety measures over shooting videos on a train without a mask – raising questions over the role of public personalities in controlling the disease after the self-governed island broke its eight-month streak for zero local infections.

Two video clips uploaded on Christmas Day showed Shiu speaking in what appeared to be a business-class, high-speed train compartment without a face mask, a reader surnamed Wang complained to Apple Daily Taiwan. The reader alleged that Shiu has violated the government’s mandatory face-mask rule on public transport.

In response to Apple Daily Taiwan’s inquiry, the train operator said staff asked a passenger to put the face mask back on and lower his voice. The passenger was cooperative and put the face mask on right away, the company said.

The train compartment was not an appropriate place for video shooting or live streaming, the train operator said.

Shiu apologized and put his mask back on right after he was told off by the train’s staff, he told Apple Daily Taiwan. “People are allowed to eat on the train and I was not the only one who had taken the mask off,” he said.

Last week, an airline pilot tested positive for COVID-19 and was found to have infected a woman who had been in close contact with him, breaking the island’s record for eighty months of zero local infections.

Formerly a renowned Hong Kong filmmaker who has produced a number of box office hits, including the second and third instalments of “Long Arm of the Law” and several Stephen Chow comedies including “Flirting Scholar,” Shiu became a prominent current affairs commentator over the past decade and has taken part in Hong Kong’s political activism. The 71-year-old founded online media Meme, which has more than 726,000 subscribers on YouTube. He moved to Taiwan early this year.

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