No international cruise ships would be allowed to make port calls in the nation, effective immediately, after a Taiwanese woman on board the Diamond Princess was yesterday confirmed to have the 2019 novel coronavirus (2019 n-CoV), Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中) said yesterday.
Chen made the announcement at a weekly news conference at the Executive Yuan in response to media queries on what the government’s plans are with the new confirmed case.
Kyodo News yesterday reported that 10 more passengers onboard the Princess Diamond, aged between 50 and 70, had been confirmed to have 2019 n-CoV, including a Taiwanese woman.
Photo: Lin Hsin-han, Taipei Times
The decision was made after experts at a Central Epidemic Command Center meeting yesterday agreed that it would be almost impossible to manage passengers on cruise ships, who are constantly boarding and disembarking, Chen said.
Furthermore, if there is a carrier of the virus on board, it would cause serious cross-infections, he said.
The command center regretted having to issue the ban, he said.
Later in the day, when asked by reporters how the center plans to deal with more than 1,700 Taiwanese onboard the SuperStar Aquarius (寶瓶星號) of Star Cruises (麗星郵輪) scheduled to return to the Port of Keelung today, Chen said that he would allow the Taiwanese entry on the condition that they be placed under home quarantine for 14 days.
Any passengers displaying pneumonia-like symptoms would be immediately quarantined by disease prevention personnel, he added.
Star Cruises said that the 1,738 passengers onboard the Aquarius include 1,709 Taiwanese, 18 Filipinos, three Malaysians, three Vietnamese, a South Korean, a Burmese, an Indonesian, a Singaporean and a Chinese spouse who had not travelled outside of Taiwan in the two weeks before the trip.
The ship was docked in Naha, Japan, on Tuesday and Wednesday after departing from Keelung on Monday, the company said.
In related news, Chen said that 1.6 million masks had been delivered to pharmacies and health centers nationwide yesterday as a rationing system that asks people to show their National Identification card, National Health Insurance card or permanent residency certificates when buying masks went into effect.
The nation’s factories are producing about 3.2 million masks daily, he said.
Asked if the government has maintained its target to produce 10 million masks by the middle of next month, Chen said that it has.
The Ministry of Economic Affairs is making an all-out effort to procure machinery for making masks from other nations, he said.
The supply target could be adjusted according to demand, he said, adding that the nation has sufficient materials to produce masks.
As of 9:30pm yesterday, Taiwan has confirmed 16 infection cases, the center said.
Additional reporting by CNA
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