Lawmakers at a meeting of the legislature’s Transportation Committee yesterday accused government officials of passing the buck regarding the COVID-19 cluster infection at the Novotel Taipei Taoyuan International Airport hotel, as none of them could give definitive answers to some key questions about the case.
The committee was briefed by officials from the Ministry of Transportation and Communications, the Ministry of Health and Welfare and the Taoyuan City Government about their proposals to better manage flight and cabin crew members and other frontline workers to prevent weak spots in the disease prevention network.
China Airlines representatives also attended attend the meeting.
As of yesterday, the hotel cluster consisted of 35 COVID-19 cases: 25 involving the airline’s crew and their family members, as well as 10 Novotel employees.
The Taoyuan City Government and the Tourism Bureau fined the hotel NT$1.41 million (US$50,690) for breaching regulations for quarantine hotels and international tourism hotels.
China Airlines was fined by the Civil Aeronautics Administration for mismanaging its pilots and flight attendants.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Hung Meng-kai (洪孟楷) and Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) legislators Chen Ming-wen (陳明文) and Lin Chun-hsien (林俊憲) focused on why the hotel was allowed to host China Airlines pilots and flight attendants on the seventh and eighth floors of the hotel’s Hall 1 — which should only have been used to host general tourists — when only Hall 2 of the hotel was designated a quarantine area by the Taoyuan City Government.
Hung said that the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC), which is part of the Ministry of Health and Welfare, and the Ministry of Transportation and Communications have known since February that the hotel was accommodating flight and cabin crew and general tourists in the same building.
He asked if the two ministries had dispatched officials to inspect the hotel before the outbreak last month, or whether they were simply busy sending official letters to one another.
Hung and Chen also asked who gave the permission to allow general tourists and airline crew to stay in the same building, even though officials from the six special municipalities opposed the idea.
The hotel’s Hall 2 was used as a transit hotel for foreign pilots, whereas the seventh and eighth floors of Hall 1 were used as dormitories for China Airlines crew, Wang said, adding that the CECC allowed the Hall 1 arrangement as long as the hotel could ensure that entrances accessed by airline crew were separate from those used by general tourists.
“Later, there was discussion that a quarantine hotel should cover the entire building, rather than certain floors of a building. On March 30, we sent the airline a letter that its dormitories should be designated as a quarantine hotel as well,” Wang said.
Civil Aeronautics Administration Director-General Lin Kuo-hsien (林國顯) said that the Taoyuan City Government had in February ascertained that only Hall 2 qualified as a quarantine hotel and had notified the administration.
“We asked China Airlines to check if its flight and cabin crew members stayed in certified quarantine facilities. However, Novotel said that Hall 1 could be used to host pilots and flight attendants, as it strictly followed disease prevention guidelines set by the CECC,” Lin Kuo-hsien said.
China Airlines said it has entrusted the hotel’s management to Accor, a French hospitality group, adding that it is not allowed to interfere in the hotel operations based on the terms of the contract.
Deputy Minister of Health and Welfare Shih Chung-liang (石崇良) said that the health ministry had in February received a tip-off about the hotel’s possible breach of disease prevention guidelines and asked the Taoyuan City Government to verify the situation.
Lin Chun-hsien said that the guidelines governing the health management of airline crew state that they can stay at company dormitories or quarantine hotels.
“The point was not that general tourists and airline crew should not stay in the same building. It is the hotel management’s failure to ensure that they were in separate zones of the building and used different entrances,” he said, adding that government officials should have been responsible for ensuring that the hotel followed the guidelines.
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