Australia reclassified as low COVID-19 risk country

ROC Central News Agency

12/09/2020 04:55 PM

Taipei, Dec. 9 (CNA) The Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) on Wednesday changed Australia's classification from a low-to-moderate risk country to a low-risk country, allowing business travelers from the region to shorten the period of time they must remain in quarantine upon arrival in Taiwan.

According to the CECC, Australia has brought its COVID-19 situation under control and recent cases in the country have mostly been imported, which is why it has been reclassified as low-risk.

In Taiwan, business travelers from countries deemed to be at low-to-moderate or low-risk for COVID-19 can apply to be quarantined for fewer than the normal 14 days, as long as they take a self-paid COVID-19 test at the end of the quarantine period and it comes back negative.

Those from low-risk countries can apply to have their quarantines lifted on the fifth day after their arrival, while those from low-to-moderate risk countries can do so after seven days.

When the CECC's list was first published in June, Australia was classified as low-risk, although it was moved to the low-to-moderate risk category on July 15 and then removed from the list altogether on July 22, due to a spike in the number of cases.

At the end of September, Australia was added back to the list as a low-to-moderate risk country, as cases there had steadily declined since August, according to the CECC.

The updated list published by the CECC on Wednesday listed 16 countries and regions as low-risk -- New Zealand, Macau, Palau, Fiji, Brunei, Thailand, Bhutan, Laos, Nauru, Timor-Leste, Mauritius, Vietnam, the Marshall Islands, Singapore, Cambodia and Australia.

No countries are currently classified as low-to-moderate risk.

(By Chiang Yi-ching)

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