International flight passengers arriving at the Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport yesterday formed long lines at the airport taxi and vehicle rental services following an announcement on Wednesday by the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) that all inbound travelers would be subject to mandatory 14-day home quarantine.
The new disease-prevention policy, which took effect at 12am yesterday, also bars entry to foreign nationals except for alien resident certificate holders, members of diplomatic or official missions, those honoring a business contract and people granted special permission by Taiwan’s representative office in their home nation.
Travelers placed under 14-day quarantine are not allowed to take public transport, and must either be picked by relatives or take the disease-prevention taxi and vehicle rental service.
Photo: CNA
The new CECC policy resulted in a long line extending up to 100m at the airport taxi station yesterday morning. Taiwan International Airport Corp (TIAC) deployed airport security personnel to maintain order at the taxi stop and asked for assistance from drivers of the disease-prevention taxi fleet at the Taipei International Airport (Songshan airport) to help transport travelers.
The airport operator had earlier assured the public that the service has enough vehicles to transport inbound travelers.
Asked why there were long lines, service representative Huang Liang-yi (黃良易) said that all inbound travelers were required to fill in contact information in detail before they were allowed to use the service.
Moreover, only a few of the travelers had arranged for pickup by relatives at the airport, he said.
Kuo Kuang Motor Transportation also provides bus services to those traveling to central and southern Taiwan, TIAC chief executive officer Lin Hsiang-sheng (林祥生) said at a meeting of the Legislative Yuan’s Transportation Committee.
Each tour bus can only carry about 20 passengers at a time, he said, adding that passengers must ensure they have family members who would pick them up after getting off the bus, or they would have to rent a vehicle.
TIAC said it was expecting 8,881 people to arrive yesterday, who were to be served by the disease-prevention vehicle fleet of 400 taxis, 20 rental vehicles and 50 buses.
Travelers heading to Taipei, New Taipei City, Keelung, Taoyuan and Hsinchu County are supposed to take the taxi service, while those traveling to Taichung, as well as Miaoli, Changhua, Nantou, Yilan and Hualien counties are supposed to take rental vehicles, and those traveling to Tainan and Kaohsiung, as well as Yunlin, Chiayi and Pingtung counties are expected to take the bus, it said.
However, between 5am and 7am yesterday, about 1,000 travelers arrived, most of whom live in southern Taiwan and did not have relatives to pick them up, TIAC said.
As there were not enough rental vehicles available at the time, some passengers had to wait longer, it added.
National Freeway Bureau Director-General Chao Hsin-hua (趙興華) warned that people taking disease-prevention vehicles are not allowed to enter the shopping areas of freeway rest areas.
If they have to use the restrooms at the rest areas, drivers have to call the freeway bureau service hotline 1968 so the bureau can have the facilities disinfected after use, the bureau said.
It added that 34 infrared thermometers would be installed in all 15 freeway rest areas across the nation by April 1.
Before the Tomb Sweeping Day holiday next month, all freeway rest areas would have drive-through zones for people taking disease-prevention vehicles to buy food, water and refreshments instead of visiting shopping areas, it added.
Additional reporting by CNA
A magnitude 7.8 earthquake struck off the southern coast of Mindanao in the Philippines at 7:38am today, prompting the US Tsunami Warning System to issue an alert for neighboring countries, including Taiwan. The system issued a purple alert indicating a "tsunami threat." The potential threat zone includes Taiwan, the Philippines, Papua New Guinea, Yap and Palau. Philippine authorities were assessing the damage from the quake, with the office of civil defense seeking to verifying initial reports that 15 people had been killed and 129 injured in the region, mostly from falling debris. Arlene Hollero, disaster chief of Maasim town in the Philippines' Sarangani Province,
‘GRAY ZONE’ PRESSURE: Beijing’s activities are intended to create the deceitful impression that China has jurisdiction over the area around Taiwan, the CGA said Taiwan’s rights over its territorial waters and exclusive economic zone must not be violated by any country, the Mainland Affairs Council said yesterday, adding that it will not accept any unprovoked actions. The council issued the remarks in response to the China Coast Guard conducting maritime enforcement drills near eastern Taiwan and claiming to fully exercise China’s maritime administrative law enforcement authority. The Coast Guard Administration (CGA) has been closely monitoring the situation and is taking concrete steps to defend the nation’s sovereignty and secure its waters, the council said. China has no sovereign rights over the waters off eastern
RESILIENCE: Taiwan plays a key role in semiconductors, energy, information infrastructure and advanced manufacturing, AIT Director Raymond Greene said Taiwan’s continued investment in deterrence and resilience remains vital, especially in uncrewed systems and other emerging technologies, American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) Director Raymond Greene said yesterday. Greene made the remarks at the annual National Strategic Summit on Supply Chain Resilience held by the Research Institute for Democracy, Society and Emerging Technology (DSET), a government-backed think tank. As Taiwan last year became the US’ fourth-largest trading partner and supply chain security is becoming more important, cooperation in emerging technologies continues to deepen between the two countries, he said. The US is committed to accelerating innovation, building key infrastructure, strengthening cooperation
RIGHT DIRECTION: Taiwan’s efforts to prevent forced labor include a proposal to ‘fully prohibit’ employers from withholding workers’ documents, an official said Taiwan is to establish a mechanism to restrict imports of goods linked to forced labor, the Executive Yuan said yesterday, after the US proposed imposing additional tariffs on Taiwanese goods over labor concerns. “The Ministry of Labor and the Ministry of Economic Affairs are to establish an interministerial review procedure,” Executive Yuan spokesperson Michelle Lee (李慧芝) said at a news briefing in Taipei. “The government is to use the Foreign Trade Act [貿易法] as the legal basis to restrict imports of goods produced with forced labor” and bring its supply chain governance more in line with international standards on human rights, resilience
RSS