The government might consider dropping a negative COVID-19 test result requirement for travelers from low-risk countries, but lifting the quarantine requirement for inbound travelers is still risky, the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) said yesterday.
The CECC on Monday said it does not plan to further loosen border controls soon.
National Taiwan University Children’s Hospital superintendent Huang Li-min (黃立民) said the “3+4” quarantine policy separates inbound travelers from family members for only three days, which is not enough to block the spread of the virus, so the government might consider changing it to a “0+7” policy.
Photo: CNA
He also said that it might be more difficult for people in other countries to find places that offer polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests, so requiring travelers to provide a negative PCR result from a test taken within 48 hours of flying to Taiwan might prove an obstacle for many people.
The government might consider requiring a negative rapid test result instead, he said.
Asked about Huang’s comments, Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中), who heads the CECC, yesterday said “it is less likely that we will change the test requirement to a rapid test result, but it is possible that we might remove the [negative test result] requirement for travelers from low-risk areas,” he said.
“It is still a little risky” to shorten the quarantine policy to “0+7,” as the number of new COVID-19 infections has increased by about 20 percent in European countries and the US, and cases caused by the new Omicron subvariant BA.5 of SARS-CoV-2 are being detected, so the center needs to observe the situation for a little longer.
In related news, Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Deputy Director-General Chuang Jen-hsiang (莊人祥), who is the CECC’s spokesman, said 35,914 new local cases and 103 deaths were confirmed yesterday.
Among the 3,863,991 local cases reported this year, 99.56 percent were asymptomatic or mild, 0.25 percent developed moderate illness and 0.19 percent developed severe illness, including 6,275 deaths, CECC data showed.
CDC Deputy Director-General Philip Lo (羅一鈞), deputy chief of the CECC’s medical response division, said a man in his 30s who had a mental disorder and was unvaccinated died of pneumonia and respiratory failure nine days after being diagnosed with COVID-19.
A 10-year-old boy was confirmed as having multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children (MIS-C) and was being treated in an intensive care unit, Lo said.
Eighty-four severe COVID-19 cases have been reported in children this year, including 21 deaths, he said, adding that 27 people have developed severe illness caused by MIS-C.
Chuang said a batch of 450,000 doses of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine for children aged six months to five years old would arrive in Taiwan this morning.
Lot release testing would take about 14 days, so the vaccine is expected to be delivered to local governments on July 21 at the earliest, he said.
Some cities and counties might start administering the vaccine the same afternoon, he added.
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