TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — The Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) on Monday (Jan. 2) announced that over a quarter of passengers arriving from China on Sunday (Jan. 1) tested positive for COVID.
Amid a massive spike in COVID cases in China, the CECC on Dec. 28 announced that starting on Jan. 1, passengers from China would have to go undergo saliva PCR tests upon arrival in Taiwan. The CECC also announced a number of new measures for passengers arriving from China, including 5+n quarantine and self-health monitoring for positive cases.
During a Monday press briefing, CECC spokesman Chuang Jen-hsiang (莊人祥) announced saliva PCR tests were administered to 524 passengers from China on Sunday. Of these, 378 tested negative, while 146, or 27.8%, were positive.
Chuang said because the new system has only been in place for one day, the data may not yet be adequate to determine whether the positive rate detected in Taiwan is high or low, and continuous observation of the data is required. He stated that amid China's surge in cases, Taiwan will not open up its borders to Chinese tourists for the time being.
The scale of the COVID outbreak in China has raised concerns about the evolution of new variants, but the Chinese National Health Commission on Dec. 25 stopped publishing data on COVID cases altogether, prompting new testing requirements for passengers from China in many countries, including Taiwan. On Sunday, Chuang said positive samples from passengers arriving from China with low Ct values will be genetically sequenced to determine what variant they are carrying.
Chuang said samples from 20 positive cases per day will be sequenced from the four direct routes arriving from China to gain an understanding of the situation with the outbreak in the different locations. Taiwan is currently only allowing direct flights from the four Chinese airports of Beijing, Shanghai Pudong International Airport, Chengdu, and Xiamen.