Nearly 40 percent of the nation’s imported COVID-19 cases were intercepted at the border, the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) said yesterday, adding that maintaining strict border controls remains an important policy.
The center would only consider reopening the border if the nation’s disease situation remains stable after domestic restrictions have been lifted, Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中), who also heads the center, said at the center’s daily news briefing in Taipei yesterday.
Taiwan on March 19 banned the entry of all foreign nationals, with the exception of Alien Resident Certificate holders, members of diplomatic missions or representative offices, those honoring a business contract, and people granted special permission by Taiwan’s representative office in their home nation.
Photo: Tu Chien-jung, Taipei Times
While the Ministry of Education had proposed that the government allow the entry of overseas students from nations deemed to be less at risk of COVID-19, a Cabinet meeting on Wednesday did not reach a conclusion.
The center would not prioritize the entry of overseas students, Chen said when asked about the issue yesterday.
Those visiting on trade or medical missions are prioritized, he said, adding that special permission is still given on a case-by-case basis.
Given that there is still a need for strict border controls to prevent imported cases, the center, which is operating at level 1, would not be downgraded to level 2 or level 3 for the foreseeable future, Chen said.
The center yesterday did not report any additional COVID-19 cases.
The nation has reported 443 cases with seven fatalities — 352 imported cases, 55 local infections and 36 infections originating from the navy’s “Friendship Flotilla” — while 429 patients have been discharged from hospital after treatment, center data showed.
Of the 352 imported cases, 39 percent, or 138 cases, were intercepted at the border, including the nation’s first confirmed case — a businesswoman flying from Wuhan, China, on Jan. 20, said Deputy Minister of the Interior Chen Tsung-yen (陳宗彥), the center’s deputy head.
Since the coronavirus outbreak began, 6,000 people with possible COVID-19 symptoms have undergone testing at airports and ports, while the center has issued nearly 150,000 home quarantine notices, Chen Tsung-yen said.
The Civil Aeronautics Administration and airlines are discussing adjusting the routes within airports to separate tourists transiting in Taiwan from inbound tourists, Chen Tsung-yen said when asked if the center is planning to lift the ban on flight transfers, which was implemented on March 24.
Whether to lift the ban on flight transfers could be discussed when those plans are ready, Chen Shih-chung said.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching