Premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) has instructed government departments to implement proper disease prevention measures and diplomatic arrangements as three foreign delegations visit Taiwan this month.
The visitors are a delegation of Japanese parliamentarians led by former Japanese prime minister Yoshiro Mori to pay their respects to late president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) at a memorial in Taipei today; a delegation led by US Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar to exchange ideas on disease prevention, also today; and a delegation led by Czech Senate President Milos Vystrcil later this month.
Ministry of Foreign Affairs officials and Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中), who also heads the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC), told Su in a briefing that disease prevention measures for the delegations are to be handled as special diplomatic cases.
Photo: CNA
The members of the US delegation need to provide Taiwanese authorities a negative result for COVID-19 from a polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test conducted within three days of their departure, and must be tested again upon arriving in Taiwan. They would also be traveling as a group and staying on a designated floor of a quarantine hotel, where they would use a separate elevator.
The Japanese delegation would need to provide negative results for COVID-19 from a PCR test conducted within two days of boarding their airplane, maintain proper social distancing, wear masks at all times, and travel with designated drivers and vehicles during their one-day visit.
Before their trip, members of the Czech delegation are to undergo a two-week quarantine and present two negative test results for COVID-19, Vystrcil has said.
Foreign delegations that visit during the COVID-19 pandemic cannot have close contact with members of the public in Taiwan, so people do not need to be concerned, Executive Yuan spokesman Ting Yi-ming (丁怡銘) said.
Yesterday, the CECC reported two confirmed COVID-19 cases: a married Taiwanese couple returning from the Philippines.
The couple are in their 60s and have worked in the Philippines for many years, said Centers for Disease Control Deputy Director-General Chuang Jen-hsiang (莊人祥), the CECC spokesperson.
The husband (case No. 478) experienced a fever, muscle pain and a runny nose on July 23, while the wife (case No. 479) experienced an itchy throat and a cough on Monday, he said, adding that they took medicine to relieve the symptoms, but did not visit a doctor.
Returning on the same flight on Thursday, they reported their symptoms to airport quarantine officers, were taken to a centralized quarantine facility after being tested for COVID-19 and are now hospitalized for treatment after the test results came back positive, he said.
Fourteen passengers who sat near the couple on the plane were placed in home isolation, while the five crew members wore protective gear on the flight, so they were asked to practice self-health management, Chuang said.
Of the nation’s 479 confirmed cases, 26 infected people are being treated in hospitals, he added.
Chuang was asked whether the CECC has traced who a Taiwanese woman had contact with locally before she flew to Hong Kong and was confirmed to have COVID-19 on Tuesday.
On Thursday, the CECC reported that the woman is in her 50s and tested negative when arriving in Hong Kong on Monday last week.
However, she left the quarantine hotel, was intercepted at the airport and retested, with the results confirmed to be positive on Tuesday, it said, adding that she had arrived in Taiwan on June 20 and stayed in the north.
Thirty-five people who had direct contact with the woman have been identified and five of them have been tested, Chuang said yesterday, adding that the trace investigation is ongoing.
Although the woman took public transportation, she said she has forgotten where, so the center used her mobile phone data to confirm where she went, he said, adding that it must also confirm whether she wore a mask.
The woman experienced symptoms after being hospitalized on Tuesday, so the infection risk that she posed in Taiwan was very low, but contact tracing is being conducted to find the source of the infection, Chuang said.
ROLLER-COASTER RIDE: More than five earthquakes ranging from magnitude 4.4 to 5.5 on the Richter scale shook eastern Taiwan in rapid succession yesterday afternoon Back-to-back weather fronts are forecast to hit Taiwan this week, resulting in rain across the nation in the coming days, the Central Weather Administration said yesterday, as it also warned residents in mountainous regions to be wary of landslides and rockfalls. As the first front approached, sporadic rainfall began in central and northern parts of Taiwan yesterday, the agency said, adding that rain is forecast to intensify in those regions today, while brief showers would also affect other parts of the nation. A second weather system is forecast to arrive on Thursday, bringing additional rain to the whole nation until Sunday, it
CONDITIONAL: The PRC imposes secret requirements that the funding it provides cannot be spent in states with diplomatic relations with Taiwan, Emma Reilly said China has been bribing UN officials to obtain “special benefits” and to block funding from countries that have diplomatic ties with Taiwan, a former UN employee told the British House of Commons on Tuesday. At a House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee hearing into “international relations within the multilateral system,” former Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) employee Emma Reilly said in a written statement that “Beijing paid bribes to the two successive Presidents of the [UN] General Assembly” during the two-year negotiation of the Sustainable Development Goals. Another way China exercises influence within the UN Secretariat is
CHINA REACTS: The patrol and reconnaissance plane ‘transited the Taiwan Strait in international airspace,’ the 7th Fleet said, while Taipei said it saw nothing unusual The US 7th Fleet yesterday said that a US Navy P-8A Poseidon flew through the Taiwan Strait, a day after US and Chinese defense heads held their first talks since November 2022 in an effort to reduce regional tensions. The patrol and reconnaissance plane “transited the Taiwan Strait in international airspace,” the 7th Fleet said in a news release. “By operating within the Taiwan Strait in accordance with international law, the United States upholds the navigational rights and freedoms of all nations.” In a separate statement, the Ministry of National Defense said that it monitored nearby waters and airspace as the aircraft
Taiwan’s first drag queen to compete on the internationally acclaimed RuPaul’s Drag Race, Nymphia Wind (妮妃雅), was on Friday crowned the “Next Drag Superstar.” Dressed in a sparkling banana dress, Nymphia Wind swept onto the stage for the final, and stole the show. “Taiwan this is for you,” she said right after show host RuPaul announced her as the winner. “To those who feel like they don’t belong, just remember to live fearlessly and to live their truth,” she said on stage. One of the frontrunners for the past 15 episodes, the 28-year-old breezed through to the final after weeks of showcasing her unique