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Border controls to remain despite lowering of COVID-19 alert

ROC Central News Agency

07/23/2021 06:44 PM

Taipei, July 23 (CNA) Taiwan will lower the nationwide COVID-19 alert to Level 2 on July 27 to ease local disease prevention measures, but will still maintain tight border controls, Health Minister Chen Shih-chung (陳時中) said during a press conference Friday.

"The lowering of the COVID-19 alert level was because the local outbreak has been brought under control. However, we will still keep tight border control measures in place," he said.

Chen indicated there may be some concessions to people arriving from overseas who have been fully vaccinated against COVID-19.

"Although we will not relax border controls, we will begin to think about a better way to manage people who are fully vaccinated," Chen said, when asked if the government will allow home quarantines if people traveling to Taiwan have been inoculated against COVID-19.

He did not elaborate, however, on what specific changes are being considered.

Because of the spread of the Delta variant of the coronavirus abroad, Taiwan has implemented stricter quarantine rules since late June.

They require all arrivals to spend their 14-day quarantine in government facilities or quarantine hotels and prohibit people from isolating at home, which many Taiwanese citizens had done previously after returning home from trips abroad.

Some border controls were tightened even before then, after Taiwan imposed a Level-3 COVID-19 alert on May 19 to control a sudden spike in locally transmitted cases.

In conjunction with the Level 3 alert, the government restricted entry into Taiwan to only Taiwanese citizens and foreign nationals holding a Taiwan residence certificate or who obtained special entry permission to enter the country.

They also barred travelers from transiting through Taiwan.

The tightened measures were to last as long as the duration of the Level 3 alert, the Centers for Disease Control said in a June 11 statement.

Since mid-May, the total number of COVID-19 cases in Taiwan has risen from around 1,200 to 15,535 Friday, and 772 people have died of the disease during that time.

(By Chang Ming-hsuan, Chiang Hui-chun and Kay Liu)

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