The nation is opening its doors to two additional categories of foreign students for the fall semester, the Ministry of Education (MOE) said yesterday.
Taiwan first reopened its borders to foreign students in August last year and allows students who fall in one of four categories to enter the nation.
The two new categories are “exchange students who are enrolled in a Taiwanese school through an education cooperation agreement signed with a foreign school” and “students [including Hong Kong and Macau residents] who are enrolled in Mandarin-language programs that last two months or longer.”
Photo: CNA
The former would be allowed to enter Taiwan from Aug. 1, while the latter have been allowed entry since Friday, the ministry said.
The students would be subject to the “3+4” quarantine policy upon arrival in Taiwan: three days of home quarantine followed by four days of disease self-prevention, it said.
They can quarantine at a hotel or at their dormitories after obtaining the approval of the local health department, it added.
Students at universities without quarantine facilities can contact the ministry to find accommodation at a centralized quarantine facility, it said.
The ministry would continue to conduct rolling reviews of the foreign student entry program, based on the Central Epidemic Command Center’s (CECC) COVID-19 regulations, it added.
Separately, Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Deputy Director-General Chuang Jen-hsiang (莊人祥), who is the CECC’s spokesman, said 25,251 local and 45 imported COVID-19 cases were reported yesterday, as well as 73 deaths.
The new local caseload is down about 10 percent from Saturday last week, he said.
Of the deceased, 47 people (65 percent) were aged 80 or older, 65 (90 percent) had cancer or other underlying health conditions and 52 (72 percent) had not received a booster vaccine, he said.
The youngest of the deceased was a woman in her 40s who was unvaccinated. She died of pneumonia and respiratory failure on Wednesday, the same day she was diagnosed with COVID-19.
Taiwan has reported 4,184,399 local cases so far this year, he said. Of those, 19,055 were moderate-to-severe cases, including 7,520 deaths Chuang said, adding that 99.55 percent of all cases were asymptomatic or mild.
The CECC on Friday reported the nation’s first community case of the Omicron BA.5 subvariant of SARS-CoV-2 — a woman in her 20s who did not travel to other countries in the past six months.
Five close contacts of the woman tested negative in polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests, Chuang said yesterday.
Her mother is suspected of being the infection source and the local health department has identified seven of the mother’s colleagues for PCR testing, he said.
Six of the colleagues were asymptomatic, while one had symptoms and previously had COVID-19, Chuang said, adding that their test results have yet to come.
He said 56,778 doses of COVID-19 vaccines were administered on Friday, bringing the nation’s first, second and booster dose vaccination rates to 91.43 percent, 85.43 percent and 70.84 percent respectively.
The Central Weather Administration (CWA) yesterday said it expected to issue a sea warning for Typhoon Fung-Wong tomorrow, which it said would possibly make landfall near central Taiwan. As of 2am yesterday, Fung-Wong was about 1,760km southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan’s southernmost point, moving west-northwest at 26kph. It is forecast to reach Luzon in the northern Philippines by tomorrow, the CWA said. After entering the South China Sea, Typhoon Fung-Wong is likely to turn northward toward Taiwan, CWA forecaster Chang Chun-yao (張峻堯) said, adding that it would likely make landfall near central Taiwan. The CWA expects to issue a land
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The Central Weather Administration (CWA) yesterday said it is expected to issue a sea warning for Typhoon Fung-wong this afternoon and a land warning tomorrow. As of 1pm, the storm was about 1,070km southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan’s southernmost point, and was moving west-northwest at 28 to 32kph, according to CWA data. The storm had a radius of 250km, with maximum sustained winds of 173kph and gusts reaching 209kph, the CWA added. The storm is forecast to pass near Luzon in the Philippines before entering the South China Sea and potentially turning northward toward Taiwan, the CWA said. CWA forecaster Chang Chun-yao (張峻堯) said
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