Taoyuan General Hospital, where a cluster of Covid-19 coronavirus infections was discovered, on January 19.
Photographer: Sam Yeh / AFP / Getty Images
Photographer: Sam Yeh / AFP / Getty Images
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Taiwan’s health authorities have implemented their broadest lockdown measures to date in an effort to prevent an ever-widening Covid-19 outbreak from spiraling out of control.
Patients, carers and medical staff at a hospital in the northern city of Taoyuan, at the center of a growing outbreak, will be quarantined at home for 14 days with immediate effect, Taiwanese health minister Chen Shih-chung said during a briefing in Taipei on Sunday. . That includes all the people they live with, and the number of people involved can be as high as 5,000, Chen said.
The warrant applies to anyone who entered the hospital between January 6 and January 19. All those affected will have to continue to monitor their health for another seven days and undergo a Covid test after leaving the quarantine.
The latest steps are the toughest measures the health authorities have taken to date as they struggle to contain the virus after it started spreading at Taoyuan General Hospital in northern Taiwan earlier this month. The outbreak is the biggest threat to Taiwan’s largely successful response to the coronavirus pandemic so far.
Taiwan has recorded a total of only 889 cases and seven deaths since the start of the pandemic, but officials have reported a steady stream of local infections linked to the hospital in recent weeks. Earlier in the day, Chen said there were five new cases on Sunday, including a man who had stayed in the hospital several weeks ago, plus one of his family members.