Starting tomorrow, people under home isolation would be required to follow the “one person per housing unit” rule if in private housing, or stay at a quarantine hotel or centralized quarantine facility, the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) said yesterday.
Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中), who heads the center, said the rules require people under home quarantine to be quarantined with one person per housing unit, or at a quarantine hotel or centralized quarantine facility.
“Starting on March 1, individuals under home isolation will also be subject to the ‘one person per housing unit’ rule,” he said. “We consider the risk of infection to be relatively high among people living in the same household.”
Photo: Chu Pei-hsiung, Taipei Times
People undergoing home isolation cannot stay in a housing unit in which non-isolated people live, unless they obtain special approval, the CECC said.
If all members of a household have been put under home isolation and were last exposed to a confirmed COVID-19 case on the same day, they would be allowed to isolate in the same housing unit, but in separate rooms with independent bathrooms, it said.
Minors, people aged 65 or older, people with disabilities or catastrophic illness, who need to be accompanied by another adult during home isolation, would be allowed to isolate in a housing unit with one caregiver, Chen said, adding that the caregiver would receive a home isolation notice and would be obligated to follow isolation rules.
Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Deputy Director-General Philip Lo (羅一鈞), who is deputy chief of the CECC’s medical response division, said gene sequencing on virus samples taken from 14 people among the 21 confirmed cases in a cluster infection at Taoyuan General Hospital has found that they were all infected with novel variant SARS-CoV-2, CAL.20C, which was first identified in South California.
The variant is possibly more contagious, has a higher contagion rate in households and might cause more serious illness, he said, citing data from the cluster as well as a study into the variant by University of California, San Francisco researchers.
Three of the 21 cases in the cluster, or 14 percent, were admitted to an intensive care unit (ICU), Lo said.
The university’s study showed that about 13 percent of patients with the variant were admitted to an ICU, compared with about 3 percent of patients infected with other variants, he added.
The contagion rate in households in the cluster was about 22 percent, lower than the 35 percent suggested in the study, he said, but added that it was still higher than the 4.6 percent contagion rate in households suggested in a study on the first 100 confirmed cases in Taiwan.
The CECC’s comprehensive review on the cluster, which caused up to 4,888 people to be placed under isolation, has five suggested improvements, including a modified standard for identifying close contacts of confirmed cases, Lo said.
In related news, the CECC yesterday reported three new imported COVID-19 cases.
One of them is a British student who had tested positive in the UK and provided two negative test results before arriving in Taiwan, Chen said.
However, she tested positive upon ending centralized quarantine on Thursday, he said.
Another case is an Indonesian sailor who arrived in Taiwan on Feb. 8 after departing Vietnam on Feb. 3, Chen said.
He tested positive in a paid test on Thursday after having completed quarantine at a hotel, he added.
The other case is a Philippine migrant worker who tested positive in a paid test on Friday while practicing self-health management, Chen said.
The government is aiming to recruit 1,096 foreign English teachers and teaching assistants this year, the Ministry of Education said yesterday. The foreign teachers would work closely with elementary and junior-high instructors to create and teach courses, ministry official Tsai Yi-ching (蔡宜靜) said. Together, they would create an immersive language environment, helping to motivate students while enhancing the skills of local teachers, she said. The ministry has since 2021 been recruiting foreign teachers through the Taiwan Foreign English Teacher Program, which offers placement, salary, housing and other benefits to eligible foreign teachers. Two centers serving northern and southern Taiwan assist in recruiting and training
WIDE NET: Health officials said they are considering all possibilities, such as bongkrekic acid, while the city mayor said they have not ruled out the possibility of a malicious act of poisoning Two people who dined at a restaurant in Taipei’s Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 last week have died, while four are in intensive care, the Taipei Department of Health said yesterday. All of the outlets of Malaysian vegetarian restaurant franchise Polam Kopitiam have been ordered to close pending an investigation after 11 people became ill due to suspected food poisoning, city officials told a news conference in Taipei. The first fatality, a 39-year-old man who ate at the restaurant on Friday last week, died of kidney failure two days later at the city’s Mackay Memorial Hospital. A 66-year-old man who dined
EYE ON STRAIT: The US spending bill ‘doubles security cooperation funding for Taiwan,’ while also seeking to counter the influence of China US President Joe Biden on Saturday signed into law a US$1.2 trillion spending package that includes US$300 million in foreign military financing to Taiwan, as well as funding for Taipei-Washington cooperative projects. The US Congress early on Saturday overwhelmingly passed the Further Consolidated Appropriations Act 2024 to avoid a partial shutdown and fund the government through September for a fiscal year that began six months ago. Under the package, the Defense Appropriations Act would provide a US$27 billion increase from the previous fiscal year to fund “critical national defense efforts, including countering the PRC [People’s Republic of China],” according to a summary
‘CARRIER KILLERS’: The Tuo Chiang-class corvettes’ stealth capability means they have a radar cross-section as small as the size of a fishing boat, an analyst said President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday presided over a ceremony at Yilan County’s Suao Harbor (蘇澳港), where the navy took delivery of two indigenous Tuo Chiang-class corvettes. The corvettes, An Chiang (安江) and Wan Chiang (萬江), along with the introduction of the coast guard’s third and fourth 4,000-tonne cutters earlier this month, are a testament to Taiwan’s shipbuilding capability and signify the nation’s resolve to defend democracy and freedom, Tsai said. The vessels are also the last two of six Tuo Chiang-class corvettes ordered from Lungteh Shipbuilding Co (龍德造船) by the navy, Tsai said. The first Tuo Chiang-class vessel delivered was Ta Chiang (塔江)