The government is negotiating with Japanese officials to arrange the evacuation of Taiwanese passengers quarantined on a cruise ship off the coast of Yokohama, Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中) said yesterday.
The Diamond Princess, with about 3,500 passengers and crew on board, was placed under a 14-day quarantine on Feb. 4, when it was scheduled to dock in Yokohama. Confirmed cases of COVID-19 infection on the ship have been rapidly increasing since then.
The Japanese Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare yesterday said that 67 new cases of COVID-19 infection have been confirmed, bringing the total number of infected passengers and crew to 285.
Photo: EPA-EFE
While the US government is making arrangements to evacuate Americans from the ship, the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) said that it has also been negotiating with Japanese officials to conduct a similar operation.
Two Taiwanese passengers who had been confirmed to have been infected with COVID-19 were hospitalized in Japan for treatment, it said.
“We have been discussing evacuation plans with Japanese authorities,” said Chen, who heads the CECC. “They have shown a responsible attitude, so we can trust them.”
Photo: Chen Chih-chu, Taipei Times
He said a charter flight would be arranged to bring the Taiwanese home once officials agree on the details of the evacuation.
The evacuation from the cruise ship would not involve prioritizing vulnerable people, as was the case during an evacuation of Taiwanese from Wuhan, China, and all 20 passengers would be brought back, he said.
“We will arrange a China Airlines (中華航空) flight,” Chen said. “The Japanese authorities are very careful in handling the case, so the problem at hand is how to bring them back, rather than whether we can bring them back.”
Separately yesterday, the CECC said it has instructed healthcare professionals to test, when in doubt, people who have visited Singapore or Thailand 14 days prior to entering Taiwan for COVID-19 and who have a fever or sore throat.
The move is in response to the spread of the virus in the two countries, the CECC said.
Additional reporting by CNA
EUROPEAN TARGETS: The planned Munich center would support TSMC’s European customers to design high-performance, energy-efficient chips, an executive said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday said that it plans to launch a new research-and-development (R&D) center in Munich, Germany, next quarter to assist customers with chip design. TSMC Europe president Paul de Bot made the announcement during a technology symposium in Amsterdam on Tuesday, the chipmaker said. The new Munich center would be the firm’s first chip designing center in Europe, it said. The chipmaker has set up a major R&D center at its base of operations in Hsinchu and plans to create a new one in the US to provide services for major US customers,
The Ministry of Transportation and Communications yesterday said that it would redesign the written portion of the driver’s license exam to make it more rigorous. “We hope that the exam can assess drivers’ understanding of traffic rules, particularly those who take the driver’s license test for the first time. In the past, drivers only needed to cram a book of test questions to pass the written exam,” Minister of Transportation and Communications Chen Shih-kai (陳世凱) told a news conference at the Taoyuan Motor Vehicle Office. “In the future, they would not be able to pass the test unless they study traffic regulations
‘A SURVIVAL QUESTION’: US officials have been urging the opposition KMT and TPP not to block defense spending, especially the special defense budget, an official said The US plans to ramp up weapons sales to Taiwan to a level exceeding US President Donald Trump’s first term as part of an effort to deter China as it intensifies military pressure on the nation, two US officials said on condition of anonymity. If US arms sales do accelerate, it could ease worries about the extent of Trump’s commitment to Taiwan. It would also add new friction to the tense US-China relationship. The officials said they expect US approvals for weapons sales to Taiwan over the next four years to surpass those in Trump’s first term, with one of them saying
‘COMING MENACINGLY’: The CDC advised wearing a mask when visiting hospitals or long-term care centers, on public transportation and in crowded indoor venues Hospital visits for COVID-19 last week increased by 113 percent to 41,402, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday, as it encouraged people to wear a mask in three public settings to prevent infection. CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said weekly hospital visits for COVID-19 have been increasing for seven consecutive weeks, and 102 severe COVID-19 cases and 19 deaths were confirmed last week, both the highest weekly numbers this year. CDC physician Lee Tsung-han (李宗翰) said the youngest person hospitalized due to the disease this year was reported last week, a one-month-old baby, who does not
RSS