Starting today, travelers who have been to South Africa or Eswatini within 14 days before entering Taiwan would be subject to centralized quarantine upon arrival, the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) said yesterday, as it confirmed Taiwan’s first person infected with a new variant of COVID-19 circulating in South Africa.
Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中), who heads the center, said that travelers arriving in Taiwan after midnight today and who have been to South Africa or Eswatini, including transit passengers, would be required to stay at a centralized quarantine facility.
They would be required to undergo two polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests at the quarantine facility — when they arrive and upon completing the 14 days of quarantine — he said, adding that those who test negative would be allowed to return home for another seven days of self-health management.
Photo: CNA
Chen said that the special program adopts the same quarantine measures as the policy on travelers who have been to the UK within 14 days of entering Taiwan.
Travelers would not be charged for the tests or their stay at a centralized quarantine facility, he said, urging them to honestly report their health conditions to quarantine officers upon arrival.
He said that 38 specimens have since October last year been collected from COVID-19 patients with higher viral loads — those with PCR cycle threshold values of 27 or under — for genome sequence analysis.
Among them, five were confirmed to have been infected with a new variant first reported in the UK and one was infected with the variant circulating in South Africa, he added.
Chen said that more than 1.25 million confirmed cases of COVID-19 have been reported in South Africa — about 22,014 confirmed cases per 1 million population — and an average of 17,021 new cases have been reported daily in the past two weeks, accounting for more than 70 percent of the cases reported in Africa.
The South African variant has been reported in 12 other countries and is believed to spread faster than other strains of COVID-19, he said.
Separately, Chen said that four new imported cases were confirmed in Taiwan yesterday.
One of the cases is an Indian man in his 30s who arrived in Taiwan on Dec. 18 last year and stayed in a quarantine hotel until Jan. 2, Chen said.
He practiced self-health management until Friday last week, without showing symptoms, he said.
He underwent a paid test at a hospital on Monday and the result returned positive yesterday, he added.
Chen said the three other cases are Indonesian fishermen in their 20s and 30s who arrived in Taiwan between Dec. 27 and Dec. 30, and all stayed in quarantine hotels or centralized quarantine facilities, as they did not show symptoms.
They were tested on Monday and Tuesday, and the results returned positive yesterday, he said.
INCURSION: After 13 PLA aircraft flew into Taiwan’s ADIZ, the US Department of State said that China should rather ‘engage in meaningful dialogue’ with Taiwan US President Joe Biden’s administration on Saturday urged China to stop placing military pressure on Taiwan, while calling on both sides of the Taiwan Strait to engage in peaceful dialogue. The statement by the US Department of State was issued after 13 Chinese military aircraft flew into Taiwan’s southwest air defense identification zone (ADIZ) on Saturday, the highest number observed in a single day this year, the Ministry of National Defense said. The air force scrambled fighter jets to monitor the Chinese aircraft, issuing radio warnings and mobilizing air defense assets until the planes left the ADIZ. The US “notes
‘INCREASED VIGILANCE’: A source of infection has not yet been found for the latest two cases in a hospital cluster, which should serve as a warning, Chen Shih-chung said A total of 2,991 people associated with a COVID-19 cluster infection at Taoyuan General Hospital have been put under home isolation, after an emergency expanded isolation order was issued on Sunday evening, the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) said yesterday. Fifteen people have so far tested positive in the cluster infection. The first case in the cluster (case No. 838) was reported on Jan. 12 — a doctor who treated an infected patient who had returned from the US. Contact tracing for the first 13 cases found connections to case No. 838, said Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中), who
CHANGE OF GUARD: Hsiao Bi-khim’s attendance at Joe Biden’s inauguration will come as a boost to those in Taiwan who feared that the new US administration would be less friendly than that of Donald Trump to the nation Representative to the US Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) is to attend US President Joe Biden’s swearing-in ceremony at the US Capitol after she was invited by the US Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies, a news release issued by the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office (TECRO) in the US said last night. The news came as a surprise as the Ministry of Foreign Affairs had been reticent about the matter, while Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) members had accused the Democratic Progressive Party administration of hedging its bets on the Republican Party. Asked about when Hsiao received the invitation, the ministry did not
FAMILY UNIT: The CECC warned that the eldest sister of the latest case, who also has COVID-19, visited Taoyuan’s Chungping evening market on Tuesday and Wednesday The Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) yesterday reported a domestic case of COVID-19, associated with a recent cluster infection at Taoyuan General Hospital, and two imported cases. Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中), who heads the center, said that the latest case (No. 885) is a woman in her 50s, who is the third daughter of case No. 881, a man in his 90s. The woman is the main caregiver of her elderly father, who had been hospitalized earlier this month and was treated by a nurse (case No. 852) from Monday to Thursday last week, he said, adding that
RSS