As of Monday next week, international travelers who arrive in Taiwan having experienced COVID-19 symptoms within the previous 14 days would need to provide two consecutive negative test results before being allowed to return home or to a quarantine hotel, while travelers from the Philippines without symptoms would be required to stay at centralized quarantine facilities, the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) said yesterday.
The center also reported a new imported case of COVID-19, a Taiwanese who had returned from Poland.
Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中), who heads the center, said with the pandemic worsening globally, the center is expecting more people to return home to Taiwan.
Photo: CNA
“As the risk of imported cases may increase, we must remain vigilant ... to prevent the virus spreading into local communities,” Chen said.
Starting from Monday, all arrivals who are experiencing COVID-19 symptoms or had experienced symptoms in the previous 14 days would be required to take a polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test at the airport and stay at a centralized quarantine facility while awaiting the result.
“Those who test negative in the first test must then take a second PCR test at least 24 hours later,” he said.
Those who test negative in two consecutive tests and are not experiencing symptoms would be assessed by a physician before being allowed to return home or to a quarantine hotel to complete the rest of the quarantine period, he added.
With the spread of COVID-19 in the Philippines slowing, the quarantine measures for travelers arriving from the Philippines from Monday would be the same as those from other nations, Chen said.
Those arriving without symptoms would be allowed to complete the 14-day quarantine period at home or at a quarantine hotel, but also practice an additional seven days of self-health management, he said, adding that the special quarantine measures for migrant workers and international students would remain.
The latest imported case is a Taiwanese in her 20s who traveled with two colleagues to Poland for work on Sept. 16.
The three returned to Taiwan on Oct. 25 and were quarantined at home as they were not experiencing symptoms when they arrived at the airport.
The woman — case No. 569 — began experiencing fatigue, a cough, sore throat, runny nose, and loss of smell and taste between Friday last week and Sunday.
She was tested for COVID-19 at a hospital and the result came back positive yesterday, Chen said, adding that the two colleagues are not experiencing symptoms and remain in quarantine.
Meanwhile, Chen said that a fall-winter COVID-19 prevention program would be launched in the middle of this month and that the details were still being discussed.
The program would not set limits on the number of participants at events such as year-end company banquets unless locally transmitted cases with an unknown source of infection were to occur.
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