Starting on Sunday, travelers from China will be required to take a polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test upon arrival in Taiwan, the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) said yesterday, as it reported 27,942 new local cases.
The Chinese National Health Commission on Monday announced that it would drop quarantine requirements for inbound travelers from Jan. 8. It also removed restrictions on the number of international flights and passenger capacity, and said that people with COVID-19 would no longer need to self-isolate.
Following the announcement, governments across the world started implementing measures to test or restrict travelers from China.
Photo: CNA
Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida on Tuesday said that starting at midnight tomorrow, travelers from China or those who have been in China within the previous seven days would be subject to a mandatory COVID-19 test upon arrival. Those who test positive would be quarantined for seven days. Direct flights from China, Hong Kong and Macau would be allowed to depart from and land at only four airports in Japan.
The US government is considering imposing new COVID-19 measures on travelers to the US from China, Reuters reported yesterday.
Malaysia has imposed new tracking and surveillance measures.
Photo: AP
India began random testing of about 2 percent of passengers arriving from other countries at all international airports a week ago to minimize the risk of any new variant entering the country.
Philippine Secretary of Transportation Jaime Bautista yesterday called for COVID-19 measures, including testing of inbound travelers from China.
“We should be very cautious, because if they have a lot of COVID cases, we should be careful about Chinese visitors coming into the Philippines,” he told reporters.
At an enlarged Cabinet meeting yesterday morning, Premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) said that Taiwan generally has not allowed Chinese travelers into the nation since the pandemic began, but more than 30,000 people are expected to arrive from China during the Lunar New Year holiday.
Su said that as some countries have taken action, he has instructed the CECC to implement preventive measures.
Deputy Minister of Health and Welfare Victor Wang (王必勝), who heads the center, in the afternoon said that from Sunday to Jan. 31, travelers from China — either on direct flights from four Chinese cities, or on ferries or flights through the “small three links” to the outlying counties of Kinmen or Lienchiang — would have to show a negative PCR test result upon arrival.
The direct flights from China do not include those from Hong Kong and Macau, and travelers do not include airline crew members, the CECC said.
Wang said inbound travelers need to practice seven days of self-disease prevention even if they test negative.
Those who test positive would be subjected to the “5+n” rule — five days of home isolation, followed by up to seven days of self-health management until they test negative with a rapid test.
Virus samples would be taken from travelers who test positive and sent to the Centers for Disease Control’s (CDC) laboratory for genome sequencing, in a bid to detect possible mutations in SARS-CoV-2 strains, he added.
People undergoing seven days of self-disease prevention must take a rapid test on the day of arrival or the first day of self-disease prevention, the CECC said.
They also must take a rapid test if they develop symptoms and must test negative in a rapid test two days prior to leaving home.
The Cabinet implemented the policy due to a lack of data transparency amid a COVID-19 surge in China, Wang said, adding that inbound travelers should seek medical attention as soon as possible if they develop symptoms.
The CECC yesterday also reported 27,942 new local cases, up 46.7 percent from Wednesday last week, 226 imported cases and 25 deaths.
Wang is tomorrow to travel to Lienchiang to meet with County Commissioner Wang Chung-ming (王忠銘) to better understand the outlying county’s healthcare capacity, as well as its testing and quarantine preparations, the CECC said.
Additional reporting by Bloomberg
AGING: As of last month, people aged 65 or older accounted for 20.06 percent of the total population and the number of couples who got married fell by 18,685 from 2024 Taiwan has surpassed South Korea as the country least willing to have children, with an annual crude birthrate of 4.62 per 1,000 people, Ministry of the Interior data showed yesterday. The nation was previously ranked the second-lowest country in terms of total fertility rate, or the average number of children a woman has in her lifetime. However, South Korea’s fertility rate began to recover from 2023, with total fertility rate rising from 0.72 and estimated to reach 0.82 to 0.85 by last year, and the crude birthrate projected at 6.7 per 1,000 people. Japan’s crude birthrate was projected to fall below six,
Conflict with Taiwan could leave China with “massive economic disruption, catastrophic military losses, significant social unrest, and devastating sanctions,” a US think tank said in a report released on Monday. The German Marshall Fund released a report titled If China Attacks Taiwan: The Consequences for China of “Minor Conflict” and “Major War” Scenarios. The report details the “massive” economic, military, social and international costs to China in the event of a minor conflict or major war with Taiwan, estimating that the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) could sustain losses of more than half of its active-duty ground forces, including 100,000 troops. Understanding Chinese
US President Donald Trump in an interview with the New York Times published on Thursday said that “it’s up to” Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) what China does on Taiwan, but that he would be “very unhappy” with a change in the “status quo.” “He [Xi] considers it to be a part of China, and that’s up to him what he’s going to be doing, but I’ve expressed to him that I would be very unhappy if he did that, and I don’t think he’ll do that. I hope he doesn’t do that,” Trump said. Trump made the comments in the context
SELF-DEFENSE: Tokyo has accelerated its spending goal and its defense minister said the nation needs to discuss whether it should develop nuclear-powered submarines China is ramping up objections to what it sees as Japan’s desire to acquire nuclear weapons, despite Tokyo’s longstanding renunciation of such arms, deepening another fissure in the two neighbors’ increasingly tense ties. In what appears to be a concerted effort, China’s foreign and defense ministries issued statements on Thursday condemning alleged remilitarism efforts by Tokyo. The remarks came as two of the country’s top think tanks jointly issued a 29-page report framing actions by “right-wing forces” in Japan as posing a “serious threat” to world peace. While that report did not define “right-wing forces,” the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs was
RSS