The Taipei City Government is cracking down on owners of short-term rental units, including Airbnb listings, who have been offering their units for home quarantine or isolation stays, amid concern that such rentals could be a loophole in disease-prevention efforts.
As of Sept. 22, people under a home isolation or quarantine order can only stay at quarantine hotels, at home or at a place offered by another person free of charge, Taipei Deputy Mayor Vivian Huang (黃珊珊) told a news conference yesterday.
Owners of short-term rental units who rent to people under a home isolation or quarantine order would be fined between NT$3,000 and NT$15,000, and the owner’s name and the address of their accommodation would be made public, she said.
Photo: CNA
“People have to be responsible to whom they are offering their houses, so the fines would be aimed at the home owners,” she said.
While there might be cases of renters who are subleasing their units for short-term stays, it would be the owner of the unit whose name would be publicized if a reported breach is confirmed, she added.
After the Central Epidemic Command Center on Aug. 19 announced that people under quarantine can only stay at “quarantine hotels” certified by local governments, the Taipei City Government on Aug. 21 released a list of non-quarantine hotels in the city that had provided accommodation to people in quarantine.
As of Tuesday last week, the city had found 81 housing units that have accommodated people in quarantine more than five times, Huang said.
Some of the cases might involve company dormitories or people who have had several family members return from overseas, so the city would check the homes, but there have also been reports by borough wardens about a home that accommodated more than 10 people under quarantine, she said.
Short-term rental suites or non-quarantine hotels might not be able to perform the proper cleaning and disinfection required for quarantine facilities, in addition to bringing together a mix of residents and those under quarantine, which might increase the risk of cross infections, Huang said.
Taiwan has arranged for about 8 million barrels of crude oil, or about one-third of its monthly needs, to be shipped from the Red Sea this month to bypass the Strait of Hormuz and ease domestic supply pressures, CPC Corp, Taiwan (CPC, 台灣中油) said yesterday. The state-run oil company has worked with Middle Eastern suppliers to secure routes other than the Strait of Hormuz, through which about 20 percent of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas typically passes, CPC chairman Fang Jeng-zen (方振仁) said at a meeting of the legislature’s Economics Committee in Taipei. Suppliers in Saudi Arabia have indicated they
A global survey showed that 60 percent of Taiwanese had attained higher education, second only to Canada, the Ministry of the Interior said. Taiwan easily surpassed the global average of 43 percent and ranked ahead of major economies, including Japan, South Korea and the US, data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) for 2024 showed. Taiwan has a high literacy rate, data released by the ministry showed. As of the end of last year, Taiwan had 20.617 million people aged 15 or older, accounting for 88.5 percent of the total population, with a literacy rate of 99.4 percent, the data
CCP ‘PAWN’? Beijing could use the KMT chairwoman’s visit to signal to the world that many people in Taiwan support the ‘one China’ principle, an academic said Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) yesterday arrived in China for a “peace” mission and potential meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), while a Taiwanese minister detailed the number of Chinese warships currently deployed around the nation. Cheng is visiting at a time of increased Chinese military pressure on Taiwan, as the opposition-dominated Legislative Yuan stalls a government plan for US$40 billion in extra defense spending. Speaking to reporters before going to the airport, Cheng said she was going on a “historic journey for peace,” but added that some people felt uneasy about her trip. “If you truly love Taiwan,
South Korea has adjusted its electronic arrival card system to no longer list Taiwan as a part of China, a move that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said would help facilitate exchanges between the two sides. South Korea previously listed “Taiwan” as “Taiwan (China)” in the drop-down menus of its online arrival card system, where people had to fill out where they came from and their next destination. The ministry had requested South Korea make a revision and said it would change South Korea’s name on Taiwan’s online immigration system from “Republic of Korea” to “Korea (South),” should the issue not be
RSS