The Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) yesterday raised its travel notice for 19 Asian nations, one Eastern European country and three US states to a level 3 “warning,” saying that travelers from those countries would be quarantined at home for 14 days upon arriving in Taiwan.
Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中), head of the center, said that most of the recently confirmed cases in Taiwan were all Taiwanese who contracted COVID-19 abroad.
“Responding to the escalating global COVID-19 situation, we are raising the travel notice to a level 3 ‘warning’ — avoid unnecessary travel — for 20 nations and three US states,” he said.
Photo: Tu Chien-jung, Taipei Times
They are: Japan, Singapore, North Korea, Thailand, Malaysia, the Philippines, Indonesia, Brunei, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Myanmar, East Timor, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal, Sri Lanka, India, the Maldives and Moldova, as well as Washington, New York and California in the US, Chen said.
He said that although the travel notice takes effect tomorrow, the quarantine measures would begin immediately.
“Travelers from these countries who have boarded their planes by now [4pm yesterday] would be asked to observe 14 days of self-health management after arriving in Taiwan; those who have not boarded their planes would face a 14-day mandatory home quarantine upon arrival,” he said.
Visa-waiver programs would be suspended for countries or areas that have been issued a level 3 travel notice, Chen said, adding that foreign nationals from those places who need to travel to Taiwan must apply for a visa at the nation’s representative offices.
They would also be quarantined for 14 days upon arriving in Taiwan, he added.
As a level 3 travel notice was issued for Italy earlier this month, followed by 27 European countries on Saturday and 14 Eastern European countries on Monday and yesterday, Chen said the center is tracing people who had recently traveled to Europe and sought medical help for respiratory symptoms or pneumonia after returning home.
Of those who returned from Europe between March 3 and Saturday, 513 people sought treatment for respiratory symptoms and 136 have been tested for COVID-19 — three of whom tested positive — while 426 people would be instructed to undergo testing, he said.
People who returned from Europe during the period should perform self-health management for 14 days, the CECC said, urging students who fit the criteria to avoid school and working people to stay at home.
The next two weeks is a critical observation period and the center expects the number of confirmed cases to increase, Chen said.
EXPRESSING GRATITUDE: Without its Taiwanese partners which are ‘working around the clock,’ Nvidia could not meet AI demand, CEO Jensen Huang said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) and US-based artificial intelligence (AI) chip designer Nvidia Corp have partnered with each other on silicon photonics development, Nvidia founder and CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) said. Speaking with reporters after he met with TSMC chairman C.C. Wei (魏哲家) in Taipei on Friday, Huang said his company was working with the world’s largest contract chipmaker on silicon photonics, but admitted it was unlikely for the cooperation to yield results any time soon, and both sides would need several years to achieve concrete outcomes. To have a stake in the silicon photonics supply chain, TSMC and
‘DETERRENT’: US national security adviser-designate Mike Waltz said that he wants to speed up deliveries of weapons purchased by Taiwan to deter threats from China US president-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for US secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth, affirmed his commitment to peace in the Taiwan Strait during his confirmation hearing in Washington on Tuesday. Hegseth called China “the most comprehensive and serious challenge to US national security” and said that he would aim to limit Beijing’s expansion in the Indo-Pacific region, Voice of America reported. He would also adhere to long-standing policies to prevent miscalculations, Hegseth added. The US Senate Armed Services Committee hearing was the first for a nominee of Trump’s incoming Cabinet, and questions mostly focused on whether he was fit for the
IDENTITY: Compared with other platforms, TikTok’s algorithm pushes a ‘disproportionately high ratio’ of pro-China content, a study has found Young Taiwanese are increasingly consuming Chinese content on TikTok, which is changing their views on identity and making them less resistant toward China, researchers and politicians were cited as saying by foreign media. Asked to suggest the best survival strategy for a small country facing a powerful neighbor, students at National Chia-Yi Girls’ Senior High School said “Taiwan must do everything to avoid provoking China into attacking it,” the Financial Times wrote on Friday. Young Taiwanese between the ages of 20 and 24 in the past were the group who most strongly espoused a Taiwanese identity, but that is no longer
A magnitude 6.4 earthquake and several aftershocks battered southern Taiwan early this morning, causing houses and roads to collapse and leaving dozens injured and 50 people isolated in their village. A total of 26 people were reported injured and sent to hospitals due to the earthquake as of late this morning, according to the latest Ministry of Health and Welfare figures. In Sising Village (西興) of Chiayi County's Dapu Township (大埔), the location of the quake's epicenter, severe damage was seen and roads entering the village were blocked, isolating about 50 villagers. Another eight people who were originally trapped inside buildings in Tainan
RSS