Reopening the borders “is just a matter of time,” the Central Epidemic Command Center said yesterday, after Japan announced that Taiwanese travelers would soon be able to visit the country in package tours.
Japan on Thursday said that its borders would reopen gradually, starting with travelers from 98 countries and regions on its “blue” list, which represents places with the lowest risk of infection, including Taiwan.
On-arrival COVID-19 tests and quarantine requirements are being waived for travelers from a blue-listed country or region, Japanese officials said.
Photo: Bloomberg
Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中), who heads the center, told a daily news conference that officials have yet to finalize a reopening policy.
Taiwan had been cautious about relaxing travel restrictions due to the country’s relatively low rate of COVID-19 infections, but the distinction no longer exists amid the current local outbreak, Chen said.
About 6 percent of Taiwanese have been recorded as official COVID-19 cases, while about 4 to 6 percent of inbound travelers tested positive in rapid tests performed at border crossings, Chen said, adding that it can be concluded that overseas travel would have no effect on the spread of COVID-19 in Taiwan.
Separately, the Tourism Bureau said that Taiwanese tour groups would not be able to travel in Japan until Taipei relaxes its travel restrictions.
Tourism agencies have been barred from offering package tours in Japan since March 2020, when a ban was implemented to prevent the spread of COVID-19.
Contravening the regulation could result in a warning followed by a fine of between NT$5,000 and NT$10,000, it said, citing the Regulations Governing Travel Agencies (旅行業管理規則).
Several travel agencies in February submitted a bid to organize package tours in Japan with EVA Airlines before the plans were halted by the bureau, it said.
The government should lift pandemic border restrictions including on-arrival tests and quarantine starting in August, when the local outbreak is expected to abate, Providence University Department of Tourism associate professor Huang Cheng-tsung (黃正聰) said.
Notice of a border reopening should be issued well in advance to give agencies a head start preparations for the resumption of group tours, which need considerable time to organize, he said.
Taiwanese tour groups would have an opportunity to sell packages that would normally go to the Chinese tourism industry, given China’s continued ban on travel amid its “zero COVID” policy, he added.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching