Taiwan Covid-19: First local case reported in more than 250 days

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According to a statement released by the island’s health ministry on Tuesday, a woman in her thirties was infected after contact with a foreign pilot, who also tested positive for the virus, between December 8 and 12.

Taiwan has been free from coronavirus since April 12 and only records imported cases. Passengers arriving on the island must be quarantined and those who test positive must be isolated and treated. Three such imported cases were also recorded on Tuesday, bringing the total number of cases in Taiwan since the start of the pandemic to 770.

Taiwanese authorities began screening passengers on direct flights from Wuhan, where the virus was first identified, on December 31, 2019 – when the virus was mostly the subject of rumors and limited reporting.

Taiwan confirmed its first reported case on Jan. 21, after which it banned residents of Wuhan from traveling to the island. All passengers arriving from mainland China, Hong Kong and Macao had to be screened.

All of this happened before Wuhan itself was shut down on January 23. In March, Taiwan had banned all foreigners from entering the island, with the exception of diplomats, residents and those with special entry visas.

At the same time, track & trace programs and widespread testing enabled Taiwanese authorities to effectively control the local epidemic and treat those infected.

Taiwan’s success in keeping the virus out has allowed the island to open up and return to relative normalcy in recent months, even as other parts of East Asia have plunged into lockdown or increased limitations due to new waves of infection.

According to state media, a Taiwanese top health official said on Monday it would not consider banning flights from the UK because a new species was discovered because adequate preventive measures had already been taken, state media said.

Those caught violating the measures that allowed Taiwan to remain virtually Covid-free for months could face severe penalties. Earlier this month, a man was fined $ 3,500 by Taiwanese authorities after breaking the quarantine of just 8 seconds.

The man, a labor migrant from the Philippines, was quarantined in a hotel in Kaohsiung City when he briefly stepped out of his room into the hallway. He was caught CCTV and reported to the Health Department, which fined him.

Taiwan is not the only place in Asia struggling with the sudden return of the corona virus. Hong Kong, Korea and Japan have all reported recent outbreaks, while Thailand began testing tens of thousands of people on Monday after a cluster was discovered in a fish market on the outskirts of Bangkok.

About 400 people have tested positive so far in connection with the new outbreak, and the Thai capital introduced new social distance measures on Tuesday, urging people to forgo major gatherings to celebrate the New Year.

However, a similar number of infections is unlikely in Taiwan as the geographic isolation of the island makes infection control and detection easier than in many other parts of Asia.

Reporting contributed by CNN’s Beijing bureau, Paula Hancocks and Joshua Berlinger.

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