The Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) could announce today that it would fully reopen borders on Oct. 13, Premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) said yesterday.
Su in the morning inspected Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport to check if airport personnel were prepared to cope with an expected rise in passenger volume today, when the weekly cap for international arrivals would increase to 60,000 people.
The requirement for a saliva-based polymerase chain reaction test upon landing is also to be waived.
Photo: CNA
The CECC last week announced that a zero-quarantine policy for international arrivals could be implemented from Oct. 13, depending on the local outbreak situation.
“If the development of the COVID-19 pandemic over the past week has indeed proceeded as predicted by the CECC, the Executive Yuan will hear a briefing from the center during a Cabinet meeting tomorrow [today],” Su said.
“It is possible that borders could be reopened on Oct. 13 as planned, if all of the ministries reach a consensus on the matter,” he told reporters.
With borders gradually reopening, an increasing number of international tourists and overseas Taiwanese are traveling to Taiwan, Su said.
Airport personnel would face new challenges, such as rearranging the flow of international arrivals inside terminals and changes in staff deployment, he said.
Taiwan enters a new phase in terms of disease prevention today, Su said.
“We want to ask all disease prevention personnel and airport staff working on the front line to perform every procedure correctly so that we can be best prepared for reopening,” he said.
Separately, the CECC said seasonal influenza is expected to cause more infections than it did over the past two years, urging people at risk of flu complications to get vaccinated as soon as possible.
The government-funded flu vaccination program would be launched in two phases, Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices convenor and National Taiwan University Hospital pediatrician Lee Ping-ing (李秉穎) said.
Eligible recipients for the first phase, which would start on Saturday, include healthcare workers and disease prevention personnel, people aged 65 or older, residents and workers of long-term care facilities, children aged from six months to elementary-school age, pregnant women, and people aged 19 years or older who have underlying health conditions, including high-risk chronic diseases.
Eligibility also includes parents of infants under six months old, preschool and nursery workers, students from elementary to high-school level, including grades one to three at five-year junior colleges, and livestock workers and animal disease prevention personnel.
Lee said people aged 50 to 64 would be eligible in the second phase, whose launch date would be announced later.
“The COVID-19 outbreak is expected to continue this winter, while seasonal flu is expected to cause more infections than the previous two years, as COVID-19 restrictions and border control measures are being lifted,” he said.
However, the flu virus strains identified in other countries have not shown significant mutations, so it is expected to be endemic and not cause an extraordinary outbreak.
“People can get the flu vaccine and the COVID-19 vaccine at the same time, as there is no clear evidence that the two cause cross interactions,” Lee said.
“We recommend getting the two on different arms,” he said.
While some believe the flu vaccine can offer protection against COVID-19, there is not enough evidence to prove it, so people at high risk of flu complications should get both vaccines, he added.
People who have recovered from COVID-19 and been released from isolation can also receive the flu vaccine, he said.
Taiwan is stepping up plans to create self-sufficient supply chains for combat drones and increase foreign orders from the US to counter China’s numerical superiority, a defense official said on Saturday. Commenting on condition of anonymity, the official said the nation’s armed forces are in agreement with US Admiral Samuel Paparo’s assessment that Taiwan’s military must be prepared to turn the nation’s waters into a “hellscape” for the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA). Paparo, the commander of the US Indo-Pacific Command, reiterated the concept during a Congressional hearing in Washington on Wednesday. He first coined the term in a security conference last
A magnitude 4.3 earthquake struck eastern Taiwan's Hualien County at 8:31am today, according to the Central Weather Administration (CWA). The epicenter of the temblor was located in Hualien County, about 70.3 kilometers south southwest of Hualien County Hall, at a depth of 23.2km, according to the administration. There were no immediate reports of damage resulting from the quake. The earthquake's intensity, which gauges the actual effect of a temblor, was highest in Taitung County, where it measured 3 on Taiwan's 7-tier intensity scale. The quake also measured an intensity of 2 in Hualien and Nantou counties, the CWA said.
The Overseas Community Affairs Council (OCAC) yesterday announced a fundraising campaign to support survivors of the magnitude 7.7 earthquake that struck Myanmar on March 28, with two prayer events scheduled in Taipei and Taichung later this week. “While initial rescue operations have concluded [in Myanmar], many survivors are now facing increasingly difficult living conditions,” OCAC Minister Hsu Chia-ching (徐佳青) told a news conference in Taipei. The fundraising campaign, which runs through May 31, is focused on supporting the reconstruction of damaged overseas compatriot schools, assisting students from Myanmar in Taiwan, and providing essential items, such as drinking water, food and medical supplies,
New Party Deputy Secretary-General You Chih-pin (游智彬) this morning went to the National Immigration Agency (NIA) to “turn himself in” after being notified that he had failed to provide proof of having renounced his Chinese household registration. He was one of more than 10,000 naturalized Taiwanese citizens from China who were informed by the NIA that their Taiwanese citizenship might be revoked if they fail to provide the proof in three months, people familiar with the matter said. You said he has proof that he had renounced his Chinese household registration and demanded the NIA provide proof that he still had Chinese
RSS