People who have not received a COVID-19 vaccine booster shot can join domestic tour groups if they present a negative rapid test result taken within 48 hours before departure, the Tourism Bureau said yesterday.
The bureau revised its disease prevention guidelines for domestic tour groups, which took effect yesterday, after the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) eased booster shot requirements for domestic travelers.
The CECC requirement, which was implemented on April 22, was widely criticized by travel agents, as they only had one week to adapt to the change.
Photo courtesy of the Central Epidemic Command Center
Nevertheless, the vaccination rate for booster shots had reached nearly 70 percent as of Thursday last week, the bureau said, adding that the rate is almost 93 percent when accounting for the required interval between doses.
“The CECC approved the revised guidelines after considering the repercussions of the booster requirement on the tourism industry, rising vaccination rates and a slight drop in COVID-19 cases,” the bureau said.
Waiving the booster shot requirement would encourage people to travel domestically, it said, adding that travel agents must monitor tourists’ temperatures, and ensure they wear masks and disinfect their hands during the trips.
Tour guides must also not exceed capacity limits at destinations, it said.
Despite the easing of the requirement, tour guides and travelers should still get a booster shot to enhance their immunity against COVID-19, it said.
At the CECC’s news conference yesterday, Tourism Bureau Deputy Director-General Trust Lin (林信任) said that certain situations would exempt tour groups from the booster shot requirement, such as if the members of the group are all family, company employees or classmates.
People younger than 12, or those aged 12 to 17 who have received a second dose of a vaccine, or have received a second dose, but have contracted COVID-19 within three months, are also exempt.
Asked about response measures if a group member tests positive during a tour, Centers for Disease Control Deputy Director-General Philip Lo (羅一鈞), deputy head of the CECC’s medical response division, said that a person who tests positive with a rapid test, which is verified by a doctor, would be classified as a confirmed case, but their close contacts would only include family members who live together.
If other tour group members stay in the same room or sit next to a confirmed case, they would not be identified as a close contact under current regulations, but if the local government considers such a case part of a cluster of infections, it could ask the travelers to take COVID-19 tests and isolate, he said.
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods