The COVID-19 testing requirement for travelers from China is to be lifted from Tuesday next week and the testing guidelines for all inbound international travelers during the self-disease prevention period is to be eased to only taking an at-home rapid test when symptoms occur, the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) announced yesterday.
Shortly after former vice president Chen Chien-jen (陳建仁) took over as the new premier yesterday morning, he visited the CECC to learn about its COVID-19 surveillance and response operations.
Chen said the world now has better control over the COVID-19 situation and the number of new infections is falling, and that the CECC would continue to monitor the outbreak in China, so he and CECC officials discussed easing masking rules and border control measures.
Photo: Wang Yi-sung, Taipei Times
Deputy Minister of Health and Welfare Victor Wang (王必勝), who heads the CECC, announced that starting from Tuesday next week, the testing requirement for travelers from China — either on direct flights from four major cities in China or through the special direct travel program between China and Taiwan’s outlying islands of Kinmen and Matsu — would be removed.
The pre-departure negative test result requirement for travelers from China transiting through Macau or Hong Kong is also to be lifted from Tuesday next week, he said.
Wang said the reasons for removing the testing requirement include that the positivity rate of travelers from China had dropped, from more than 20 percent when the program started on Jan. 1 to an average of about 2 percent last week.
While conducting genomic sequencing for detecting possible new high-risk variants was the main purpose of the testing program, the decline in the number of positive cases leads to fewer samples for genomic sequencing, he said, adding that no new dangerous variant had been detected and the vast majority of travelers who tested positive had the Omicron BA.5 or BF.7 subvariants of SARS-CoV-2.
Wang said the requirement that all inbound travelers are required to take a rapid test every two days if they go out during the seven-day self-disease prevention period after arriving in Taiwan would also end on Tuesday next week and they would only need to take a rapid test if they develop symptoms.
Following the revised testing guidelines, the free at-home rapid test kits offered to inbound travelers at airports and harbors would be reduced from four kits to one kit, for use when symptoms occur, and they can purchase more test kits at pharmacies if needed, he said.
Wang said the revision was made because no new variant of concern had been detected and imported cases only accounted for about 0.4 to 2.2 percent of new daily cases in Taiwan.
Airport quarantine stations would continue to screen for travelers with symptoms, he said.
As further easing the masking rules would affect many aspects of people’s daily lives, the plan was to be discussed at a Cabinet meeting yesterday and the CECC would publicize the plan later this week.
Taiwan yesterday reported 32,023 new domestic COVID-19 cases — an increase of 118 percent compared with the same day last week — 264 imported cases and 32 deaths.
A subsidiary of a Hong Kong-based company that has lost control of two critical ports on the Panama Canal said it is seeking US$2 billion of compensation in damages from Panama over its “illegal” takeover of the ports. Panama Ports Co, a unit of Hong Kong’s CK Hutchison Holdings (長江和記實業), on Friday said in a statement that it is demanding the sum under international arbitration proceedings that it had already started. The Panamanian government last week seized control of the Balboa and Cristobal ports on each end of the Panama Canal, after the country’s Supreme Court declared earlier that a concession allowing
DETERRENCE: With 1,000 indigenous Hsiung Feng II and III missiles and 400 Harpoon missiles, the nation would boast the highest anti-ship missile density in the world With Taiwan wrapping up mass production of Hsiung Feng II and III missiles by December and an influx of Harpoon missiles from the US, Taiwan would have the highest density of anti-ship missiles in the world, a source said yesterday. Taiwan is to wrap up mass production of the indigenous anti-ship missiles by the end of year, as the Chungshan Institute of Science and Technology has been meeting production targets ahead of schedule, a defense official with knowledge of the matter said. Combined with the 400 Harpoon anti-ship missiles Taiwan expects to receive from the US by 2028, the nation would have
POSSIBILITIES EMERGE: With Taiwan’s victory and Japan’s narrow win over Australia, Taiwan now have a chance to advance if South Korea also beat the Aussies Taiwan has high hopes that the national baseball team would advance to the World Baseball Classic (WBC) quarter-finals after clinching a crucial 5-4 victory over South Korea in a nail-biting extra-inning game at the Tokyo Dome yesterday. Boosted by three home runs — two solo shots by Yu Chang (張育成) and Cheng Tsung-che (鄭宗哲) and a two-run homer by Stuart Fairchild — the triumph gave Taiwan a much-needed second victory in the five-team Pool C, where only the top two finishers would advance to the knockout stage in Miami, Florida. Entering extra innings with the game tied at four apiece, Taiwan scored
MISSION OF PEACE: The foreign minister urged Beijing to respect Taiwan’s existence as an independent nation, and work together to ensure peace and stability in the region Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) yesterday rejected Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi’s (王毅) comments about Taiwan, criticizing China as a “troublemaker” in the international community and a disruptor of cross-strait peace. Speaking at a news conference on the sidelines of the Chinese National People’s Congress, Wang said that Taiwan has always been a territory of China and that it would be impossible for it to become its own country. The “return” of Taiwan to China was the natural outcome of the Chinese people’s resistance against Japan in World War II, and that any pursuit of independence was “doomed
RSS