Taiwan to quarantine around 5,000 people in effort to curb latest coronavirus outbreak

Taiwan’s Health Minister Chen Shih-chung on January 24 announced that the island nation will more than double the number of people who have to quarantine at home to over 5,000 following a cluster of cases linked to a hospital. According to SCMP, Taiwanese officials have already located nearly 3,000 people who have had contact with the infected patients in Taoyuan General Hospital. Chen even asked those who had visited the hospital in northern Taiwan between January 6 and January 19 to report to the authorities for quarantine. 

Taiwan has kept the pandemic well under control because of its early and effective preventive measures. However, since early January, the island nation has been dealing with a small number of domestic transmissions at the hospital. Around 13 people have been infected with the deadly virus so far and even though the number is small compared to other parts of the world, it has unnerved the Taiwanese government which has already cancelled many large-scale events related to the upcoming Lunar New Year. 

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Taiwan’s COVID-19 outbreak 

Amid the rising cases, on Sunday, Chen urged people to quarantine at home or in special facilities for two weeks followed by seven days of self-health management. He also added that authorities will continue to locate and notify the rest of the potential contacts, which include patients who had been discharged from the hospital, those accompanying patients to the hospital and those who lived with the patients. It is worth noting that those infected in the outbreak, which started on January 12, include two hospital patients and three of their relatives, as well as medical staff, their family members and a carer. 

According to reports, 13 of the infections have been traced to a doctor, but the Central Epidemic Command Centre said it had yet to discover how one patient, who was being treated for another condition, and one of his relatives had become infected. The command centre has already ordered the evacuation of patients and staff from the hospital, which has treated nearly 114 COVID-19 patients. As of Monday, Taiwan has recorded 889 infections and seven deaths. Nearly 95 patients are still being treated in hospital for the disease. 

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