Taiwanese who had been stuck in China’s Hubei Province due to the COVID-19 pandemic returned to Taiwan late on Sunday on a special flight and are now in quarantine, the Central Epidemic Command Center said.
The 153 evacuees arrived at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport at 10:20pm on a government-
contracted China Airlines flight that departed from Shanghai Pudong International Airport at 8:58pm, the center said.
Photo: EPA-EFE
Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中), head of the center, yesterday said that the flight was delayed slightly, but the screening procedures conducted after the passengers disembarked went relatively smoothly, taking only about 1.5 hours.
They were taken to a quarantine center to begin 14 days of mandatory isolation, Chen said.
After the passengers were settled at the quarantine center, Taoyuan General Hospital deputy superintendent Chen Ri-chang (陳日昌) and six physicians went to their rooms to perform COVID-19 swab tests, with the procedures completed early yesterday morning, Chen said.
The specimens were sent to ministry’s lab in Taipei and tested immediately, he said, adding that although three specimens were flawed and more were taken, the results of the other 150 people were negative for COVID-19.
Taiwan’s Border Affairs Corps said that 159 Taiwanese in Hubei had reserved seats on the flight, but some of them failed to make it to Shanghai in time, while a few others were not allowed to board because their travel documents had expired.
It was the first of two special flights contracted by the Straits Exchange Foundation to bring home Taiwanese in the Chinese province, where restrictions on outbound travel were lifted on Thursday last week after several weeks of lockdown due to the pandemic.
The second flight was scheduled to depart yesterday afternoon, with those with reservations required to make their own way to Shanghai.
In other news, the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday said that Taiwan had planned to donate 10,000 protective gowns to China, delivering them on an Eastern Airlines charter flight, but the plan fell through when the airline did not have enough time to make the necessary preparations.
The flight was the first evacuation of Taiwanese from the Chinese city of Wuhan, where the novel coronavirus emerged, bringing back people who were stranded there after the city was sealed off.
The Eastern Airlines flight arrived in Taiwan on Feb. 3 and Taipei had intended for the 10,000 protective gowns to be placed on the plane for its return to China, MAC Minister Chen Ming-tong (陳明通) said.
However the airline felt “it did not have time to undergo the necessary procedures” and so declined the gowns, he said.
The issue has not been raised again during the two sides’ discussions on additional charter flights, as there have been many other matters to deal with, he said.
Additional reporting by Lee I-chia
The majority of parents surveyed in northern Taiwan favor the suspension of all on-site classes at schools from the junior-high level and below amid a surge in domestic COVID-19 infections, parent groups said yesterday. About 84.4 percent of respondents in a survey of 2,912 parents in northern Taiwan, where the outbreak is the most serious, said they supported suspending classes, the Action Alliance on Basic Education, the Taiwan Parents Protect Women and Children Association, and the Taiwan Love Children Association said. The groups distributed questionnaires to parents in New Taipei City, Taipei, Keelung, Taoyuan and Hsinchu city and county from Saturday morning
‘LONE WOLF’: The suspect was difficult to locate, as he did not use a cellphone, did not contact family and often lived in abandoned sites or parks, police said Taipei police on Thursday morning arrested a man accused of numerous burglaries and at least 14 incidents of sexual assault spanning more than 20 years, in what might be the nation’s most notorious crime spree in recent years. Sixty-year-old Tu Ming-lang (涂明朗) — who was yesterday placed in judicial detention, after a judge determined he was a flight risk without a fixed address — faces multiple charges of sexual assault and burglary, police said. A task force comprised of various law enforcement agencies arrested Tu as part of an investigation into an April 28 burglary in Daan District (大安), in which a
ASEAN BATTLEGROUND: Japan and Australia could be drawn into Pacific tensions as China sets its sights on the Diaoyutai Islands and further beyond the first island chain Tensions between China and the US in the Indo-Pacific region are expected to intensify, the National Security Bureau and Ministry of Foreign Affairs said, recommending that Taiwan continue to emphasize its shared values and interests to encourage resistance to Chinese aggression. US commitments in the Indo-Pacific region are expected to continue unabated despite the war in Ukraine, as Beijing takes advantage of the conflict to expand its influence in the region, the agencies said in reports delivered to the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee on Sunday, ahead of a hearing yesterday on regional developments and trends. Although Russia’s invasion of
ONLINE REPORT: Confirmed cases filling out the online contact tracing report can check a box to indicate that a close contact had received a booster dose, an official said The guidelines for diagnosing COVID-19 have been revised to include people aged 65 or older who test positive with a rapid test that is confirmed by a healthcare worker, the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) said yesterday, as it reported 65,794 new local infections. The CECC had first announced the change on Monday, before publishing the new guidelines. Starting today, people aged 65 or older, regardless of whether they are undergoing home quarantine, home isolation or self-disease prevention, can be classified as a confirmed COVID-19 case by a healthcare professional, based on a positive result from an antigen rapid test, said
RSS