Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中) yesterday elaborated on the rules for “social distancing” and said that the government is providing subsidies to encourage more hotels to become quarantine hotels.
Chen on Tuesday urged the public to practice social distancing by keeping at least 1m apart outdoors and 1.5m apart indoors.
If maintaining such distances is not possible due to confined or crowded spaces, then everyone should wear a mask, Chen yesterday told a daily news briefing at the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) in Taipei.
Photo: CNA
The center also suggested that people avoid exhibitions, sports events, concerts and other social activities that require close interaction with others, as well as nonessential visits to entertainment venues, whose owners — if they are likely to have close interactions with others and cannot wear masks — should consider suspending operations.
The flexible policy that has been implemented is mainly aimed at persuading people to observe proper social distancing, said Chen, who heads the center.
Stricter regulations and corresponding penalties might be introduced if the virus crisis worsens, but the center has not set a time frame or conditions for their implementation, he added.
People should wear a mask when traveling on MRT metropolitan rail networks and high-speed trains, where it is difficult to maintain a safe distance, Chen said.
Students in the same class are not random strangers, so they do not necessarily have to wear a mask if the classroom has proper ventilation, he said.
Restaurant owners can consider installing divider boards to separate customers to reduce the risk of infection, he added.
In addition, the Tourism Bureau is providing a subsidy of NT$1,000 per room per night until June 30 to encourage more hotels to become quarantine hotels for people in home quarantine, Chen said.
Hotels would be required to comply with establishment and management regulations for quarantine hotels published by the center and cooperate with the bureau and local government policies, the CECC said.
While people who break home quarantine orders were previously fined and taken to a centralized quarantine center if they breached the order twice, Chen said that they would now be remanded to a quarantine facility after the first offense, deprived of a government quarantine subsidy and required to pay for additional expenses, including their accommodations.
Deputy Minister of the Interior Chen Tsung-yen (陳宗彥), who is deputy head of the CECC, said that the number of people in mandatory home quarantine hit a high of more than 55,000 on Saturday last week, but had fallen to about 48,000 as of yesterday.
Effective immediately, residents of outlying islands who are placed in home quarantine would be banned from taking domestic flights or boat rides, so they would have to complete the 14-day quarantine on Taiwan proper, he said.
In addition, a temporary ban on international transit flights is to be extended until April 30, he added.
Separately yesterday, the Environmental Protection Administration increased the minimum fine for dumping masks from NT$1,200 to NT$3,600.
People caught dumping masks face a fine of NT$3,600 for a first offense and NT$6,000 for each repeat infraction, it said.
Additional reporting by Lin Chia-nan
Considering that most countries issue more than five denominations of banknotes, the central bank has decided to redesign all five denominations, the bank said as it prepares for the first major overhaul of the banknotes in more than 24 years. Central bank Governor Yang Chin-lung (楊金龍) is expected to report to the Legislative Yuan today on the bank’s operations and the redesign’s progress. The bank in a report sent to the legislature ahead of today’s meeting said it had commissioned a survey on the public’s preferences. Survey results showed that NT$100 and NT$1,000 banknotes are the most commonly used, while NT$200 and NT$2,000
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) yesterday reported the first case of a new COVID-19 subvariant — BA.3.2 — in a 10-year-old Singaporean girl who had a fever upon arrival in Taiwan and tested positive for the disease. The girl left Taiwan on March 20 and the case did not have a direct impact on the local community, it said. The WHO added the BA.3.2 strain to its list of Variants Under Monitoring in December last year, but this was the first imported case of the COVID-19 variant in Taiwan, CDC Deputy Director-General Lin Ming-cheng (林明誠) said. The girl arrived in Taiwan on
South Korea is planning to revise its controversial electronic arrival card, a step Taiwanese officials said prompted them to hold off on planned retaliatory measures, a South Korean media report said yesterday. A Yonhap News Agency report said that the South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs is planning to remove the “previous departure place” and “next destination” fields from its e-arrival card system. The plan, reached after interagency consultations, is under review and aims to simplify entry procedures and align the electronic form with the paper version, a South Korean ministry official said. The fields — which appeared only on the electronic form
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) is suspending retaliation measures against South Korea that were set to take effect tomorrow, after Seoul said it is updating its e-arrival system, MOFA said today. The measures were to be a new round of retaliation after Taiwan on March 1 changed South Korea's designation on government-issued alien resident certificates held by South Korean nationals to "South Korea” from the "Republic of Korea," the country’s official name. The move came after months of protests to Seoul over its listing of Taiwan as "China (Taiwan)" in dropdown menus on its new online immigration entry system. MOFA last week
RSS