Taiwan has thrived like a bubble of normalcy during most of the pandemic. But as the island faces a growing coronavirus outbreak, the island’s health authorities have relaxed several preventive measures to ease the strain on medical resources for the long battle against the virus.
In the latest move on Sunday against the highly transmissible Omicron variant, health officials announced that newly infected people with no symptoms or only mild symptoms would no longer have to stay in quarantine facilities for 10 days after being tested and found not to be highly contagious.
Taiwan’s health minister, Chen Shih-chung, said in a news conference on Sunday that the island’s health experts had examined the 1,530 locally transmitted cases confirmed from Jan. 1 through Saturday and found 99.8 percent asymptomatic or mildly symptomatic. used to be. The experts have therefore decided that those who do not have to stay in the health facilities for treatment can leave earlier, said Mr. chen.
Taiwan has kept the number of Covid deaths and cases relatively low, reporting an average daily number of 220 cases in the past week, according to the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University. In recent weeks, health officials have reiterated that current outbreaks in several cities in Taiwan are stable and manageable.
In March, health authorities shortened the quarantine period for all international arrivals and for close contacts of anyone who tests positive to 10 days, from 14.
According to Mr Chen, health officials are also considering including a vaccination campaign in their efforts to phase out quarantine measures. He said authorities were considering including people with three doses of vaccine in the non-quarantine groups. Taiwan had fully vaccinated 78 percent of the eligible population on Friday, according to the Taiwanese government.
Whether Taiwan will further lift quarantine measures depends on containment of the current outbreaks, health officials say.
Taiwan has favored a less heavy-handed approach than neighboring China, which is struggling to contain the worst Covid-19 wave since the coronavirus first emerged in the city of Wuhan. But unlike other Asian countries like South Korea and Singapore that are reopening borders, Taiwan is only open to foreigners coming on business.