Workers contracting COVID-19 at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport has prompted the central and local governments to prepare to curb a potential outbreak in Taiwan, hoping to get in front of any community spread before the Lunar New Year holiday.
The authorities should consider the following when taking precautions for handling people returning to Taiwan for the holiday:
Saliva samples are being used to conduct nucleic acid tests, with arrivals passing through immigration control and then proceeding to a sample collection point in the corridor outside the terminal. Passengers spit into a container that they are supposed to hand to airport staff, but I saw three passengers, unsure of what they needed to do because of the unclearly marked route, deposit their samples in a public area where baggage carts were parked and security guards did not stop them. I had to step in and personally direct them to the collection area.
While the booths in the sample collection area are separated by acrylic boards, the regulations require people to spit several times into their collection container. Being outdoors, their spittle was sometimes carried through the air by gusts of wind, which made me quite nervous.
Several arrivals left the collection area without using the provided hand sanitizer, and then pushed their baggage carts to the boarding area for the disease prevention taxis, opening the taxi doors with unsanitized hands and potentially leaving the virus on the touched surfaces. This is perhaps how airport staff became infected.
For these reasons, nasal and throat swabs might be a safer and more efficient way to collect samples, especially as some older people had difficulty spitting into the receptacles and, in some cases, had to return because they had produced too little saliva.
Using swabs would also avoid the situation in which arrivals do not sanitize their hands and leave the virus on baggage carts and door handles.
The route through immigration should also be revised. Some passengers have been alighting from their flights, proceeding to the duty-free stores to purchase cigarettes and alcohol, and then passing through the Centers for Disease Control testing stations to fill out quarantine precaution information and go through customs. If any of these passengers are COVID-19 positive, there is a risk that they will infect others.
My suggestion is that, after leaving the aircraft, arrivals should proceed to a designated area, such as the waiting room for the inter-terminal shuttle service, to provide their samples and wait for the test results, using the time to fill in their quarantine information. If they test negative, they can proceed to the duty-free area and customs. If they are confirmed to have the virus, they can go to a designated hospital.
By doing this, the virus can be prevented from spreading to airport staff in the duty-free stores and customs, as well as cleaning staff.
Many overseas Taiwanese are returning to Taiwan to spend the Lunar New Year holiday with their loved ones. We must all do our bit to ensure that everyone is safe during the holidays.
Anderson Fu is a senior traffic manager at an airline.
Translated by Michelle Mitchell
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