Taiwan is aiming to ease its strict COVID-19 quarantine policy from next month as it needs to gradually resume normal life and reopen to the world, the government said yesterday.
Since the COVID-19 pandemic began two years ago, Taiwan has succeeded in keeping reported cases below 20,000, having enforced a blanket two-week quarantine for everyone arriving in the nation, even as large parts of the rest of the world have reopened.
Speaking at a meeting with senior health officials, Premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) said that even though there could be further domestic infections, the government was “quite confident” in its disease prevention measures.
Photo: Chu Pei-hsiung, Taipei Times
“The government must also take into account livelihoods and economic development, gradually return to normal life and step out to the world,” the Executive Yuan cited Su as saying.
On the precondition that there are sufficient medical supplies and preparations, and that the vaccination rate continues to rise, Su said that he had asked the Central Epidemic Command Center to “consider whether reasonable and appropriate adjustments” should be made to the quarantine and entry policy for businesspeople.
Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中), who heads the center, said that it would aim to cut the quarantine period from 14 days to 10 days before the middle of next month, confident that it could detect any infections within that period with testing.
“Basically, we can relax epidemic prevention” measures, Chen said.
Asked whether quarantine could be done away with completely before the summer holidays, Chen said: “The possibility is not high.”
About 30 percent of the nation’s 23.5 million people have now had a booster dose of COVID-19 vaccine, a figure that is gradually rising, and the government has said that it wants to get that to 50 percent before easing entry requirements.
Taiwan has never gone into full lockdown during the pandemic and has never closed its borders, although arrivals have generally been limited to Taiwanese and foreign resident certificate holders.
Chen said business travelers would be able to return and would have to do the same 10-day quarantine, but he could not offer a time frame on allowing tourists back in.
The center is dealing with a handful of new domestic COVID-19 cases per day, all as a result of the more infectious Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2.
Officials have said they are confident they can contain those outbreaks.
Tropical Storm Usagi strengthened to a typhoon yesterday morning and remains on track to brush past southeastern Taiwan from tomorrow to Sunday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. As of 2pm yesterday, the storm was approximately 950km east-southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan proper’s southernmost point, the CWA said. It is expected to enter the Bashi Channel and then turn north, moving into waters southeast of Taiwan, it said. The agency said it could issue a sea warning in the early hours of today and a land warning in the afternoon. As of 2pm yesterday, the storm was moving at
UPDATED FORECAST: The warning covered areas of Pingtung County and Hengchun Peninsula, while a sea warning covering the southern Taiwan Strait was amended The Central Weather Administration (CWA) at 5:30pm yesterday issued a land warning for Typhoon Usagi as the storm approached Taiwan from the south after passing over the Philippines. As of 5pm, Usagi was 420km south-southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan proper’s southernmost tip, with an average radius of 150km, the CWA said. The land warning covered areas of Pingtung County and the Hengchun Peninsula (恆春), and came with an amended sea warning, updating a warning issued yesterday morning to cover the southern part of the Taiwan Strait. No local governments had announced any class or office closures as of press time last night. The typhoon
DISCONTENT: The CCP finds positive content about the lives of the Chinese living in Taiwan threatening, as such video could upset people in China, an expert said Chinese spouses of Taiwanese who make videos about their lives in Taiwan have been facing online threats from people in China, a source said yesterday. Some young Chinese spouses of Taiwanese make videos about their lives in Taiwan, often speaking favorably about their living conditions in the nation compared with those in China, the source said. However, the videos have caught the attention of Chinese officials, causing the spouses to come under attack by Beijing’s cyberarmy, they said. “People have been messing with the YouTube channels of these Chinese spouses and have been harassing their family members back in China,”
The Central Weather Administration (CWA) yesterday said there are four weather systems in the western Pacific, with one likely to strengthen into a tropical storm and pose a threat to Taiwan. The nascent tropical storm would be named Usagi and would be the fourth storm in the western Pacific at the moment, along with Typhoon Yinxing and tropical storms Toraji and Manyi, the CWA said. It would be the first time that four tropical cyclones exist simultaneously in November, it added. Records from the meteorology agency showed that three tropical cyclones existed concurrently in January in 1968, 1991 and 1992.
RSS